This review was originally posted on Addicted To Romance






Birthday Girl was a story that I have so excited for and this is a very hyped up book and I honestly didn't give it a second thought when I saw this book and I just had to grab it up. Now this is one of those books that is all over TikTok that I am shocked you can't find it at B&N yet, but I am sure it is only a matter of time. It's a book that everyone is raving about these days and you all know how I feel about hyped books but apparently, I wasn't listening to myself because I didn't even think about grabbing this one up here and I have to say it didn't meet up the desired expectations. Now I am not going to lie, that it was a bit of a page turner and I was compelled by the story but I kinda felt flat at the end, because the way everyone talks about it like its their best read of the year and after reading this one, its on the lower tatum pole of books I have read this year. I enjoyed it quite a bit but not the extent of what I was expecting from it.

Birthday Girl is a wild and slow burn feeling of a story which features:

• Pike-Works in construction, single father, divorced, lonely heart

• Jordan-Beautiful, hardworking, waitress, sweet and kind

Birthday Girl begins with Jordan going out after working a long day at work on her birthday, with her boyfriend not answering her calls, so she takes some wine and goes to see a show but what she doesn't expect is to make friends with a man who curls her toes, but treats her like she matters. There is a connection but she knows that it can't go anywhere because she is already in a relationship even if that relationship is currently on the rocks. But when she learns that this handsome sexy stranger is her boyfriends father she is shocked to the core, but when her boyfriend hits a new low and they are evicted from their apartment, she goes with him to live with his dad. To say things are awkward is a complete understatement, but they built a quick friendship and that bond only grows the more time they are around each other. But the more neglected Jordan is by her boyfriend, the more she craves the touch of his father even though that would ruin everything. But sometimes touching the forbidden is worth the risk in the end....

Time passes by you like a bullet,” he says, “and fear gives you the excuses you’re craving to not do the things you know you should. Don’t doubt yourself, don’t second-guess, don’t let fear hold you back, don’t be lazy, and don’t base your decisions on how happy it will make others. Just go for it, okay?

Birthday Girl wasn't a book I expected in some ways. This is definitely a slow burn romance so you definitely need to be aware of that before you go into this one here. I didn't know what I expected to find going into it but I was actually shocked to see the level of heat that is actually in the book and that it doesn't happen for much later in the story. NOT the norm for Penelope Douglas but I was actually quite pleased to read such a solid slow burn romance. I will be honest, sometimes slow burn romances will put me to sleep and I definitely didn't felt that with this one here. I was actually pretty surprised how un boring this one felt. I still felt engaged by the pacing and the writing of the book so I was really into it quite a bit. But I will say that as an overall read it definitely didn't meet up with my expectations and I am actually sad about this book. Because I was expecting one to pack a punch and it didn't even make it to "pinch" haha While it was a enjoyable read and I had fun with many aspects of the story, it just didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to. I am a little confused why its so well loved by so many, I don't get the hype surrounding it.

“I knew you were out there somewhere,” I tell her, quirking a sad smile. “The girlfriends, women I dated, Cole’s mother…. I never wanted to marry anyone, because they weren’t what I was looking for. I had started to think I had my sights set too high, and you didn’t exist.” I clasp the back of her neck and run my thumbs down her throat. “Turns out my dream girl belongs to the one person it would kill me to hurt.”

Overall though I found Birthday Girl to be a relax a day away type of read, its a sweet slow burn romance, with a touch of forbidden, moments of sweet and heart packed in with a engagement to keep you sucked into the story. One that many romance readers will be entertained by.