This book is about a seemingly well to do woman and her beyond lavish 40th birthday she’s throwing for herself and the story of an event that changed her life 24 years prior. This book did keep my interest throughout but was also extremely slow for the majority of the novel. It seemed like the author created a lot of cliff hangers but most of the action and answers don’t come along until the last little bit of the book and then feels rushed. A solid 3 stars.

A rags to riches feel with a twist of sour lemons.
Oh what tangled webs we weave especially in our wild and crazy teen lives that we must begin to repay in our wiser years.
You know the old saying you can run but you can't hide.
Eventually the karma train comes a chugging along!!
This is the party of a lifetime in a ritzy home in Palm Springs a far cry from the trailer park she's once known to reside.
So much has changed from those earlier times including her outlook on life. She's married now but is constantly worried about her spouse cheating. I mean doesn't everybody cheat (she wonders)?
She is after all Todd's fourth wife and I'm sure it's not all roses and rainbows in any relationship that is move in ready with kids.
Yet her Sweet 16 seems to take the reigns of importance even now but why?
Who is this Mish person?
What ever happened to Leo - a young man she had lost her virginity too?
Why is Sam aka Samantha having so many issues in this marriage and why was she supposedly expelled from Stanford?
So many questions that you can bet the answers are never far away!
Enjoy this one!

Ellie seems to have it all: the perfect husband, 4 beautiful children, a booming career, and more houses than she knows what to do with. Now it’s her 40th birthday and she’s invited everyone who’s anyone to attend her extravagant bash. 

But on the day of the party, Ellie receives text messages from someone in her past, someone she hasn’t seen in 24 years. 

Over 2-decades earlier, Mish and Leo were best friends and they were celebrating a sweet 16 birthday. But what happened that night would forever change them. Ellie thought she had left her haunting past behind her, but now her secrets are threatening to be revealed. 

The Birthday Girl is Melissa de la Cruz’s return to adult fiction. The last time I read anything by this author, it was the Au Pair series back when I was a teenager. So when I saw her name pop up, I had to give her thriller a chance. Unfortunately, it fell completely flat. I didn’t like Ellie’s character and found her to be extremely judgmental of the LGBTQ community—she made several comments that made me uncomfortable. Aside from that, the plot was a trope I’ve seen time and time again (your past coming back to haunt you), but it wasn’t executed in any nuanced way. 2.5/5 stars. 

Thank you NetGalley, Dutton and Melissa de la Cruz for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received a ARC for review. My opinions are my own. I do not descriptions of wealth so I skipped that part of the book. I did like the alternate story lines from the character at 15 to present day at 40. She lives a lavish life but is haunted by what she did at 15 on her Birthday. It all comes to a head in  her 40th Birthday.  This is not a thriller but more of a emotional drama of a young tortured girl trying to grow into someone she can never be. I did not find the main character interesting but she was driven. .

I wanted to like this book. I have read a couple of books previously by Melissa de la Cruz and enjoyed them. This one sounded great in the synopsis, but was a real let down.  First off, the main character was AWFUL.  She grew up poor and wanting and as an adult was living the life of the rich, famous and successful.  Man, did we know it. 50 percent of the book was all about who the main character knows, what she owns, the house she bought just to have a party, the billionaires she hangs with, etc...

The story was told in the present and past.  Somehow, the entire set up was as if the past were going to come back to haunt Ellie. I don't want to give any plot points away because so little time was actually spent on the trauma from the past that it really didn't even feel like a major part of the story.  The author played with some of the names of her characters to likely add a level of "surprise" but in the end, this one fell very flat.

I kept reading wondering when we were going to "get to it" and it just never really got there.  Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Ellie De Florent-Stinson is a successful businesswoman who seems to have it all. As she celebrates a milestone birthday in Palm Springs her past and present will collide in unexpected ways. Leo and Mish are best friends from a Portland trailer park. It’s Leo’s sixteenth birthday, and Mish is determined to make it a special one.
The story flip flops between the two birthday celebrations - Ellie’s 40th over the top blow out and Leo’s far simpler 16th. With a sophisticated plot and nice tension, I was always on edge waiting for the next big revelation. And, what a revelation it was. It totally took me by surprise. This absorbing rags to riches tale is all about the secrets, of which there are many, but there is one really big deeply buried shocking secret to be revealed. A very good read. 4.5 stars

While I love Melissa de la Cruz novels, this one fell a little short for me when it came to the thriller-suspense aspect of the book.

The Birthday Girl by Melissa de la Cruz fell short for me, particularly as the book was hyped as a thriller, yet failed to deliver the elements of intrigue and suspense that I was expecting.  

Told in alternating narrative timelines, Ellie looks back to a birthday party that she attended at the age of sixteen which, ultimately, did not go according to plan.  Currently celebrating her own fortieth birthday, Ellie reflects on how far she has come from her humble beginnings, throwing herself a lavish party that spares no expense.  I found Ellie to be an altogether unlikable character and this distaste, unfortunately, also extended to most of her family and friends.  I must admit too, that I spent the first 80% of this novel wondering when something significant would occur to advance the plot, but kudos to the author for a late twist that serves to pull everything together in the end.  

Thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP - Dutton for this ARC.

Ellie has bought a $2M home in Palm Springs that she calls Gulf House.  Today she is having a party to celebrate her 40th birthday.  It’s a 3-day celebration.  Ellie and her husband, Todd, have 4 children blended from their previous marriages.  Todd has working in television, but his job became stale and he is now without work.  Ellie has had a successful line of women’s clothes, but right now it appears on the verge of collapse.  She is hoping to hear from a Korean buyer for an offer to purchase her line.

At the party, there are lots of famous people and lots of name dropping as well.  It appears that everyone is sleeping with everyone else’s spouse.  Busy people!

The story switches back and from the time with Leo and her friend, Mish, who were young teens from poor families looking to be noticed and experimenting with drugs and alcohol.  The night of Leo’s sixteenth birthday was spent with Mish and Mish’s boyfriend, followed by going to a club.  But something dreadful happened that will always make Mish sad.

This is a very strange book.  It’s not until the end that all of the pieces come together.  However, I certainly don’t consider it to be a thriller.  Sometimes, bad things happen to people and you have to learn to go on with your own life trying to learn from what happened in your past.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I loved this book! I devoured it in one sitting. Great character development. I'm definitely a fan of this author. Thanks Netgalley for the Arc

This was a pretty good book! I enjoyed reading my ARC, and it was a fast read and easy to understand and great characters! Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy this new author and I highly recommend this to everyone.

An unlikeable main character and a less than thrilling plot made this novel fairly forgettable. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38216157

Here is my gripe about this one without trying to spoil it too much. I am the type of reader who really gets into the main characters story, including any flashback background, etc. That being said, I feel like I read the whole story getting into Ellie's head just to find out I was completely following the wrong character. 
The story is about Ellie and her 40th birthday party. Both the present and past parts take place over a one day period 24 years apart. 
Leo and Mish are 16 and the best of friends. Both girls come from pretty poor backgrounds with crazy family situations. On Leo's 16th birthday, the girls head out on the town with some friends and end up in some pretty precarious situations, dabbling in drugs, alcohol, and sex. 
Ellie gets a mysterious text on the eve of her party from an old friend from that night. It turns out to be an ex and they rehash a bit of the past at the party. We ended up delving deeper into the past and then discover Ellie is not at all who we thought throughout the course of the book.
This is one of those stories that you just cannot write a good review about without really giving out the spoilers for the book. It was a good story but just really made me frustrated once I got to the twist at the end because I felt I needed to reread the book to then understand it better.

When I read the synopsis, I thought I was in store for a really good suspense-thriller.  I kept waiting for the suspense, but unfortunately, it never happened.

This story was okay, but it wasn't my favourite.

This book is not a thriller. It didn’t quite meet the mark for me as a mystery or suspense either, but it was short, easy to read, and relatively entertaining. My biggest complaint is that the promised dark “secrets” were not that exciting. And the twist at the end actually made me like the main character less. I think this story would probably make a much better movie than a book as the scenery would be beautiful, and the gorgeous Palm Desert party scenes could really come to life. As a movie, it would probably have more success at finding its target audience as well. Mystery/thriller readers will probably be dissatisfied, like me. This story is for people who watch Keeping up with the Kardashians and think designer labels actually mean something. I feel like those people would prefer a movie, but maybe I’m just stereotyping.

This was a disappointment.  I kept waiting for the mystery, waiting for the 'thriller' part.  Unfortunately, it seemed to be mainly a lot of fluff with characters I didn't like.  Just wasn't a book for me.

I enjoyed this book—it was a super fast read with short chapters that alternated between past & present.  It focuses on Ellie & her 40th birthday party, and the events from 24 years ago, during a different birthday party.  The descriptions of the uber-rich are fun to read, especially as told by someone who grew up poor.  The characters aren’t especially likeable but their antics kept me turning the pages. There was a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming & though I wouldn’t really call it a thriller, it was an entertaining read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this and give my honest review. I found this book well-written and interesting. I will admit that it wasn't my favorite of this author's work. I just didn't connect with the main character. I would still recommend it.

I was looking forward to reading this book. Thus when I got a copy I was very excited. Sadly, this book did not quench my thirst. 

I found the characters off putting and stuck up. The one that was the most was the birthday woman herself, Ellie. She was all about showing off a wealthy image even if it meant it was all pretend. The people that Ellie was trying to impress were not her friends. It felt like a somber party. When I learned about Ellie's secret; I was like that is it. It was not a shocking one. 

It was a bit of a struggle for me to get to the half way point with none of the characters intriguing me. Plus, it felt like the story moved at a slow pace for anything to really start happening. The latter half of the book did more faster but it did not change my feelings about the book overall.

3.5 stars rounded to 4 

Ellie de Florent-Stinson is about to celebrate her 40th Birthday. And it will be the party that spears no indulgence. This soiree is not only for her celebration, but a showcase to the rich and famous that she has entered their world. To prove to herself she has shed the past of the family's trailer, the felon father and the absentee mother.

The Birthday Girl is told from two different timelines that are 24 years apart. Birthday past and birthday present. In the past, we explore Leo's (short for Eleonor) coming of age through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old.  Leo and her best friend Mish are celebrating without holding anything back. Fast forward 24 years later, we see Ellie's extravagant life is on the brink of financial ruin. Her 30 million dollar company needs an influx of money and is dependent on creating a partnership. As the party starts to unfold, several storylines develop and the guest list will cause the past to collide to the present. 

The Birthday Girl by Melissa De La Cruz is a fun yet dark novel that had an ease to the reading. While I was less interested in the present story, I found myself engaging with Leo and Mish, wanting to discover their complex lives and personalities. Each family holds secrets and it is not until the end that we discover the depths of the two girl's endurance. 

Overall, the novel was a fun read with dramatic scenes of both lush and harsh realities. If you savor indulgent and dark vignettes, you will enjoy this novel. And you may discover you might love to fly across the country just to attend Ellie's party in your private jet!

Thank you Netgalley, the author and the Dutton Penguin Group for the ARC in the exchange for my honest review.