I really wanted to like this book. The synopsis held so much promise, but the book failed to deliver as much as I hoped for from it. I enjoyed it well enough, but with a few tweaks it could have been an even more enjoyable read.

I struggled through this book...hard.
I expected a thriller and all I got was a sad story about a girl who was poor and made wrong choices as a teenager. They weren't even that bad but it was made into some big deal.
It took me three tries before I actually made it through this book, simply because it was just blah to me. I could not get into it no matter how hard I tried.

I did not expect the ending at all!!! Good read. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded intriguing to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during this 2nd attempt, I have
decided to stop reading this book
and state that this book just wasn't for me.

Old and new friends appear and your glamorous life begins to crumble. Now a 40 year old fashion designer, she was once a 16 year old trailer park dweller. The past is rearing its ugly head

Melissa de la Cruz is one of my favorite authors, so I thought this book would be a smash hit for me. Unfortunately, I couldn't follow along with the plot and lost interest.

Was that supposed to be a “twist” ending ? “Mish “/“Mishon” - Eleanor-Leo-Ellie... oh, no, that’s Michelle ! If so, it was stupid. If not, there’s a big consistency issue in the novel. I’m usually a fan of the author, thus my selection. This book was almost a DNF for me. Oh, and the neat bow at the end...again, stupid. And sooo contrived and obvious.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book was one of those reads that helps you forget what is going on and just be in the book. I enjoyed it and could relate to a few of the characters. I loved that it was a fun, quick easy read. I love escaping inside books, now more than ever!

"The Birthday Girl" is listed as a thriller, but doesn't really contain anything particularly thrilling or shocking. I honestly found the plot pretty dull and the main character unlikeable. This book may be fine for readers who enjoy drama and mild suspense but it was not for me.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A Tale of Two Birthdays

Elllie de Florent-Stinson is a fashion designer who seems to have it all: handsome husband, beautiful homes, and talented children, but appearances can be deceiving. She’s celebrating her fortieth birthday at her new home in Palm Springs. Ellie likes things to be perfect, but almost immediately things start to go wrong including a note from a friend from long ago saying they’re coming to the party.

When she was sixteen, Ellie lived in a trailer part. On her sixteenth birthday, Ellie and her best friend go out to celebrate. They do drugs, get drunk, and end up at the wrong party. It doesn’t end well and has haunted Ellie.

This story is told in two time lines, Ellie at forty and Ellie at sixteen. It’s primarily in her point of view with a few sections by her husband. I found the book rather slow going. The set up is interesting suggesting that secrets are about to come out, but nothing exciting happens. There is a twist at the end, but for me it didn’t save the book.

I didn’t care for Ellie either as a teen or as a forty-year-old. I thought she was too involved with herself, egotistical and selfish. The other characters didn’t come alive at all. The best part of the book was the vivid description of the way the super rich live. The author did a good job with that.

I received this book from Dutton for this review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

3.25 out of 5 stars

Ellie is turning 40 and the best thing to do is to have the most fabulous birthday party that a woman can have.

Told with alternating timelines, the past which takes place 24 years ago and the present. In the past we meet best friends Leo and Mish who are ready to celebrate Leo's sweet 16. Let's just say that things just didn't go as planned. The present timeline is about Ellie, her fabulous party. Ellie feels like she needs to have THE party, the kind of party that makes all of her friends green with envy.

While I did enjoy this novel and Melissa de la Cruz has a wonderful writing style but I didn't feel like this is much of a thriller. It felt more like an adult contemporary with some mystery thrown in for good measure. If you are looking for a good adult contemporary then pick this up!

I couldn't get into this book. I'd previously liked this author, but this departure wasn't for me. The cover didn't seem to go with the book and it was a weird mash up of genres that I didn't really get.

*I was sent this book by the publisher for an honest review- all opinions are my own.*

The Birthdat Girl by Melissa de la Cruz is a suspense novel that will keep you guessing. It's the epitome of an unreliable narrator, because you're not sure who's actually speaking to you. It goes back and forth between time periods- you see the life of a rich and affluent woman intertwined with 2 poor, young girls. Each chapter switches from the past to the present. I liked the way the book was set up that way. I didn't love the present- the whole setting is a bit much with the uber rich characters with their eccentricities, it's not a world I'm familiar with so I couldn't get into that setting as much. But, I did enjoy the back and forth and the mystery of what happened to bring all of these events together. It definitely kept me guessing and surprised me in the end. I would definitely read another book by this author just because of her writing style and ability to make me wonder.

Ellie is turning forty, and she has a big birthday party planned. She's invited everyone she knows and has everything planned to the last detail. Things do not go according to plan though. Something is up with her husband, her daughter has returned home unexpectedly from college, her best friend can't make it, someone from her past has decided to drop by, and Ellie's waiting on a last minuted business deal.

Told with alternating timelines - past (24 years ago) and present (birthday party). The past timeline is about Leo and Mish, two girls from the wrong side of town, on the night of Leo's 16th birthday. They are best friends and excited to go out and celebrate, but things do not end happily. The present timeline is about Ellie, her lavish party, and the things happening in her life.

This is listed as a thriller, but nothing is particularly surprising or shocking. Ellie is not the most likable character, but she's realistic. She wants perfection, and to prove that she belongs. An entertaining book for readers who enjoy drama and mild suspense.

I received an ARC from Penguin Group Dutton in exchange for an unbiased review of “The Birthday Girl” and after reading the summary I was eager to dive in. Sadly, while a well-written novel, due to several missed opportunities and troublesome plot and structuring points, it failed to live up to my expectations. I am sure there is a large audience for this type of novel, unfortunately, I’m not a part of that group.

Ellie de Florent-Stinson is a wildly successful fashion designer hosting a perfectly extravagant 40th birthday party for herself. As the party unfolds, one disaster after another threatens to ruin the evening and destroy everything she has worked so hard to build. In a dual narrative, another birthday celebration from 24 years earlier tracks the evening of two teenage girls from the trailer park, where one bad decision after another ends in a way that will change their lives forever. The novel shifts between both timelines until they converge at the climax. “The Birthday Girl” is an intimate exploration of two birthday celebrations that could not be more different but remain dramatically linked.

Author Melissa De La Cruz is an exceptionally gifted writer and “The Birthday Girl,” at its core, revolves around a fascinating premise and is written in cutting and unforgettable prose. Her protagonist, Ellie de Florent-Stinson, is an amazingly complex character that has managed to come from her “wrong-side-of the-tracks” poor-girl beginnings to become a multi-million-dollar fashion designer. That climb alone is a vein worth mining, but sadly we only get to see the two opposing sides of that evolution. Dialogue from both timelines is natural and crisp and perfectly reflective of the two teenage girls struggling to fit in with the rich kids as well as the mega-rich interactions among Ellie’s 40th birthday party. Both timelines ring true and are distinctive of the diverse settings. While there was a great deal I admired about the novel, there were several elements I found troubling.

“The Birthday Girl” is touted as a suspense/thriller, unfortunately I found it to be woefully lacking in both suspense and thrills. The setup for both timelines comprise the first half of the book and both are tremendously tedious; the preparation for the party involving chapter after chapter of Ellie complaining endlessly about all the hardships of planning her extravagant birthday party and the teenagers wandering aimlessly through their day searching for something exciting to cap their celebration, one girl a brash and overbearing bully the other a meek, spineless pushover. Each character is grating in their own way and in no way endearing to the reader. While every chapter seems to end in a cliffhanger, rather than building suspense, the relentless cliffhanger endings served more as an annoyance than a compelling way to build suspense.

In my opinion, a well-constructed character is a character that elicits an emotional response from the reader, while a poorly-constructed character leaves no impression whatsoever. In that regard, this novel is filled with well-constructed characters, unfortunately my emotional response was a strong disliking for every character in this book. The teenagers are rendered as either bullies or pushovers with very few characteristics that make them endearing. The adults are intolerably worse. Nearly every character at Ellie’s 40th birthday party is rendered as a horrible, self-absorbed clown, endlessly whining and complaining about every aspect of their extravagant lives. Most of the characterization serves better as a parody of the rich, rendered as “Real Housewives” caricatures of wealth perfectly suited for guilty-pleasure television viewing. Admittedly, there is a huge audience for this type of imagery of the rich, as the enormous viewership for those types of shows demonstrate.

The element I found the most troubling was the dramatic twist at the end of the novel. There was a marvelous build-up to the reveal, but, sadly, I don’t feel the payoff was worth the climb. While all twists require some level of manipulation of the reader to be successful, rather than being surprised by the twist, I felt duped. A good twist should hide the truth in plain sight but use the readers assumptions against them until the twist leaves them both surprised and satisfied. While some sort of twist was expected, once it was revealed there was no surprise and satisfaction but rather a host of coincidences that robbed the story of believability. Too many coincidences were required to pull off the twist that while unexpected, was not enough to anchor the entire story. I would have enjoyed seeing the entire storyline from 24 years earlier as the first act of this story, while the 2nd and 3rd acts explored the ramifications of how that night affected the characters and the aftermath of those events 24 years later.

“The Birthday Girl” was a well-written character study bridging two birthday celebrations separated by 24 years. Calling it a suspense/thriller is a stretch as I would not label it as either. Fans of “Real Housewives” styled glimpses into the lives of the rich and famous may enjoy this novel very much, but fans of the suspense/thriller genre may find it lacking. There were elements from the story I enjoyed a great deal, and I admire Melissa De La Cruz greatly as a writer, at the end of the day, “The Birthday Girl” was really not for me.

I really tried to love this book but the ending let me down. It started off with Ellie, a rich designer, who had overcome her oppressive childhood. The story switches from present day to the past throughout the book. I guess the "thriller" description of this book was disappointing. Not enough twists nor enough likable characters. Also, the chapters don't need titles.

*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own*

The plot description of this book made it seem very interesting and I usually enjoy books by de la Cruz. The story is okay. It's not something I would recommend to someone as a great read. I've read other books by her that I've really enjoyed. This was just okay.

While it is billed as a suspense The Birthday Girl focused more on the the build up than the actual suspense. It was an exciting read at the beginning, but the end was a bit of a let down. I was interested to see what happened to the characters, but found the end confusing.

I was provided an e-arc from netgalley to read and review

I unfortunately missed the opportunity to read