A review by theferalhousewivesbookclub
Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas

3.0

Spice: 1.5/5
Plot: 3/5

Oh Penny D, Penny D, Penny D… why ya gotta do me like that? lol. It was so close… so, so close and then ya had to go and ruin it. Fuckin eh.

Before anyone riots, let’s please just remember that 3/5 does not a bad book make. I actually really, really enjoyed this one and I was devouring it up until about the 50% mark, but lord help me, it was so flawed. The age gap is a hard trope to write on the best of days and it was going really well… until it wasn’t anymore. FMC’s in books with a big age gap, in this case it was 19 years, need to be mature AF and stay that way. If they start acting like immature little twats, it’s game over, immediately. Unfortunately that happened here. This chick threw a temper tantrum the likes of which I don’t think I’ve seen in a book before. And then she literally goes… “Thank God he didn’t find out about that or he’d change his opinion on whether or not I’m an adult.” Are you fuckin for real with this shit? I can’t with these cringey little immature girls. Someone gimme an age gap romance where the FMC is actually worthy of the MMC, cuz this ain’t it. Was Pike Lawson a little flawed too? Absolutely. But this chick was terrible, go the fuck home and grow up. Pike was amazing though and I love him. He definitely carried this story for me.

The other issue… ya wanna know how many times the word kid, or a variation of it, was used in this book? 108 times. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT TIMES! Get the fuck outta here with this garbage lol. You wanna convince me that this chick is an adult, and acts like an adult, and should be treated like an adult… stop using the fucking word kid. Gross. No where in an age gap romance should you have the word kid in relation to a sexual or romantic partner. I can overlook it if it’s mentioned once or twice, but 108 times. Christ almighty. I fuckin can’t.

Other minor things, the writing was odd in a lot of places and the sentence structure was really strange. Lots of repetition with words or phrases and just kind of lazy writing. The plot and the MMC I really liked though and I didn’t even hate Jordan until around the 50% mark lol.

I know it doesn’t really seem like it from this review, but I did actually enjoy this book lol. Were there things that annoyed the fuck outta me? Yup. But I think that’s kinda just how Penny D is for me. Will I continue to read and buy her books? Absolutely! They’re still entertaining as fuck and I do actually like her work. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find one that finally breaks outta the 3 star range haha.

Ash, please don’t hate me lol.

Xo
- J