Birthday Girl, Penelope Douglas, 2018
(Spoilers)
This review is PG-14!
Apologies to those who aren’t fans of reading smut but I liked this book A LOT!
Truly, all jokes aside, despite this being a smutty, romance novel with dual POVs and taboo tropes—borderline erotica—it’s my take that Penelope Douglas wrote it really well. I’m a big sucker for your trendy romances on booktok, and a lot of the book canons in that category include Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry (I’m a sucker for Emily Henry), Ali Hazelwood, Tessa Bailey, Lucy Score, etc. Of course I couldn’t say any of those writers aren’t good writers, but a lot of their merit comes from their plots over their writing (which is, don’t get me wrong, a skill I envy with my life). Based on my reading of this book alone, I’d probably say Penelope Douglas’s writing craft is right there near the top of that list (next to Emily Henry).
I was genuinely impressed by many of the scenes in this book, especially the sex scenes, which in trendy tiktok romance novels, generally read as filler and seem to lack purpose in the romantic plot. In Birthday Girl, too, one wouldn’t say all of the spicy scenes reflect the feelings of ‘one true love’—they’re much steamier than that—but, maybe since the topic of this book is the taboo, screwed up situation in which a 19 year old girl falls in love with her messy boyfriend’s 38 year old father, the spiciness feels as though it has a bigger purpose in mind, and it does progress the plot.
(Oh my god, let me add here that my defense does NOT include the “Halloween” bonus chapter. That felt pointless and the sex in it felt incredibly unnecessary. Wasn’t a fan.)
Also, many of what we consider “sex” scenes are not actually sex scenes. This is something I especially appreciated because it allowed for the actual sex scenes to retain the steaminess intended of them, despite having already been through it a few times. What I mean by this is there’s a few instances where the character’s fantasize about each other in very real time. Douglas uses the present continuous tense for these fantasies, so we sort of forget they’re fantasies as they’re happening. When Jordan and Pike do end up sealing the deal, we still feel the thrill of it being their first time, despite already having read a few steamy scenes before that point.
Another thing Douglas does is a really steamy facetime call in which Jordan pleasures herself on the corner of her desk. LOL. It’s definitely a silly thing to admire Douglas’s writing skill for, but truthfully it was a great way to keep her readers from getting bored without overdoing the sex scenes between the couple.
Oh, and it takes more than half the book for the couple to even get together. A sort of slow start, I would even say, which is already a real highlight for a book of this kind because what we’re really feening for is the sexual tension and build-up, and we definitely get it.
It’s not only the steaminess which I think is done well! They also have such a quirky and fun relationship. There are little things which characterize them as a couple which are just unique and make them feel real. Movie nights, for example (yeah, I know that’s not so unique but it’s nice to see such a normal routine in a book), and pizza nights, and she teases him on his age a lot and the birthday wishes she makes on candles (I have never had an original experience), and their mutual appreciation for landscape/construction is sort of niche but helps to build their realistic chemistry.
The first page is a book playlist! Which already engaged me because the author obviously tailored the playlist to match the vibes she was going for, and possibly even listened to these songs as she wrote. They’re mostly 80s rock songs, which isn’t very much my own vibe, but I still enjoyed the playlist because it added to the authenticity of my reading experience.
Birthday Girl begins with a great scene in a movie theater where Jordan spills her wine and drops her phone in the row below, and meets a lonely Pike who is also attending the showing of Evil Dead. This scene is very long and drawn out, but immediately I was impressed with how full a scene it is. Douglas does a great job at detailing all of the characters’ movements as well as Jordan’s thoughts, and I love how the 80s movie scene caters to maybe an esoteric group of nostalgic movie-goers, because even though I’m not one of them, I could tell that the scene has a real feel to it.
It’s her birthday, by the way, but her boyfriend—who was supposed to pick her up from her bartending job at midnight—wasn’t answering his phone, which is what led Jordan to the movie theater to kill time in the first place. This boyfriend, Cole, turns out to mess things up a lot, and at the end of the Evil Dead showing—at she and Pike’s goodbye, where they both kind of want to stay but know it isn’t appropriate since they’re strangers and 19 years apart in age—they find that Pike is Cole’s father. They go together to bail him out of jail.
From here, Cole and Jordan are evicted from their apartment, and Pike offers them a home at his house. He and Cole have an awful relationship, thanks to Cole’s awful mother, but Cole accepts anyway the free ride in a beautiful home.
Because of this rocky relationship between him and his father, Cole spends nearly no time at the house. Jordan, who wants to show her thanks and respect to Pike, hangs around to help with household chores, while Cole is out either with friends or at work 90% of the time.
Pike quickly catches on to the fact that Cole treats Jordan like shit, and that Jordan is a really cool, really fun, really attractive 19 year old who he feels very connected to and enjoys spending time with. From a reader’s perspective, it seems Pike takes the role of the boyfriend, as he’s the one who spends dinner with her (really, vice-versa, she spends dinner with him), watches movies with her, etc., while her sister encourages her to take a job alongside her at the strip club. Although Jordan is not as confident and promiscuous as her sister is, she considers it for the money. Daddy Pike of course says absolutely not.
When Cole is found CHEATING on Jordan, Cole moves out, but Pike encourages Jordan to stay rather than go to her father’s run-down trailer where her step-mother treats her like crap and her step-brother leers at her.
Pike begins to take the role of a caregiver for Jordan, though their set-up is more akin to that of a husband and wife than a father and daughter—she cooks and cleans while he works and comes home to a ready meal or takeout. The two really do spend an awful lot of time together, and they have some really natural and sweet moments. Things heat up (very much so) and even feel settled for a while, despite their unanimous guilty consciences, until Pike’s ex-wife and Cole move in and Pike and Jordan are caught. Pike—thank goodness—chooses his son over Jordan, and she leaves, disappointed in the reality of their situation, but nonetheless absolutely heartbroken.
There’s a 2-month time jump here, which works well for a storyline in that it could be argued Pike and Jordan were just in the lustful heat of the moment and would forget each other as distance increased; however, they didn’t. Cole is actually the character who has undergone the biggest change, coming to visit his father after joining the military. This father-son scene is probably the most poignant in the novel. Pike gives Cole a well-deserved apology, and Cole gives his father his sincere forgiveness—and understanding—as well as reflects on his childhood and how well he’s always known his father loves him.
With his son’s blessing, Pike goes to find Jordan, who has moved across states, and they quickly (unrealistically) reconcile. We get another time jump for one year later in which the two are engaged. This is my biggest peeve in the novel. Jordan is a receptionist at a hotel, Pike finds her hotel, says he loves her, and then they grab a room, have sex, and all is well and good. I think the situation was deserving of a longgggg conversation first! Especially since by returning to each other at this point, their relationship is clearly expected reach past the point of lust and into “this is our future” territory! Shouldn’t the 38 and 19 year old talk about things like marriage, kids, career, COLE, etc. before jumping into such a precarious relationship again!?
The biggest disappointment (though I try to not let this color my perception of the novel) is the Halloween Bonus chapter, which isn’t spooky at all, and feels very pointless. They go out in public to a drive-in movie showing on Halloween, and are dealing with the negative public perception of their age difference for the first time. I believe the point was to show that the two of them can still have great sex in the face of adversity, but like, it wasn’t all that necessary and it was even a little boring.
My only other critique would be that in a few scenes, Jordan definitely gives disordered eating vibes. She does things in a teasing manner like packing Pike’s lunch bag with cucumber wraps when he would clearly prefer something tastier, and in one scene she even advises Pike to eat their salad before eating their pizza so they fill up mostly on the salad. Like what ?? That, to me, is an idea which blatantly stems from diet culture. I worry young girls may read these unaddressed ideas and run with them, not realizing that they fall into line with eating disordered behaviors.
4/5
Content Warnings: Age gap, mentions of sexual assault, drugs and alcohol
Quotes:
I want to be for him.
We hold each other so tight that I don’t know if I’m holding her up or she’s holding me up, but for a moment, I’m afraid I’ll fall if I let her go.
She’s like water slipping through my fingers, and I’m dying here.
…he’s the only thing in my life I understand.
But it also makes me wonder…if my heart will never break this badly again, then will I love anyone like I loved Pike Lawson?
I haven’t even lit any candles, because I don’t know what to wish for what I have to blow them out.
