This was a great book! The Birthday Girl is about Ellie de Florent-Stinson and centers around the lavish 40th birthday party she is throwing herself at her newly purchased Palm Springs house. The book also flashes back to Ellie as a younger girl. One chapter is present, the next chapter is 24 years prior when Ellie was 16. The chapters begin to mesh more when characters from the past show up in the present at the birthday party, thus connecting the two time periods. There are several plot twists, the biggest of them all happening in the past chapters. You learn that Ellie grew up in a trailer with little money, which is the reason for her outrageous spending and lifestyle as an adult. She wants to prove that she is so far removed from her childhood. While reading, I would fluctuate between not liking Ellie to then liking her when she finally revealed a softer side of herself. The one part of the book that bothered me a little, without revealing spoilers, was from the past. Almost half the book was about Ellie's past, yet how the past chapters ended so abruptly, leaving me unsatisfied. It's hard to really get too deep into that, without giving away the plot and one of the big twists. Also, it was a little strange that for Ellie's colorful life leading up to her 40th birthday, and all of the innuendos of past events that she had been through, this book focused on one event, one day really, from when she was 16-years-old. Yes, this past day indeed shaped Ellie and the person she was in the present, but I'm not sure the book did justice on HOW that day affected Ellie. It's almost like two different stories, connected by a fine thread. But this book absolutely held my attention and was a page-turner!

*I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I love me a good Melissa de la Cruz book. I was thrilled to curl up and read this book, especially since it dealt with a woman turning 40 (there needs to be more of this!). The characters in here are over the top and I love every minute of it. I really enjoyed the past and presents and how things had changed so quickly!

Caution, don't go into this expecting a "real look" at things. This is completely an escape with reality with characters that almost seem to insane to be true!

Its a good suspense book and I love de la Cruz's books!

I wish I could say I enjoyed this but I knew from the first chapter it wasn’t meant to be :( The premise sounds really interesting but unfortunately it failed to deliver. The characters were also all extremely unlikable.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

October 19
The Present
5:00 PM

Ellie de Florent-Stinson had made a point of telling everyone she knew that she'd bought the house in Palm Springs for her birthday, as a gift to self.

Renting a Palm Springs house for a celebration was practically a rite of passage among a certain Los Angeles set, a flurry of Paperless Post invites with the requite Rat-Pack-in-the-desert themes landing in one's inbox with a predictable thud over the years.

But Ellie always had to one-up, take it to the next mile, power it beyond the goalpost and smash it on the turf while doing an illegal victory dance—so she had actually bought a house, for a little over two million. Renting was so bourgeois.

I'm a huge Melissa de la Cruz fan, as my long-time blog readers might know, so I was excited to get my hands on her newest book, The Birthday Girl. There were a few twists throughout that I didn't see coming, also, and I very much enjoyed the novel.

Official synopsis:
Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Birthday Girl, by Melissa de la Cruz {ends 8/25}
In the thrilling, suspenseful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz, all of Ellie de Florent-Stinson’s secrets come to light in one eventful evening full of twists, turns, and surprises.

Before she became a glamorous fashion designer, Ellie de Florent-Stinson was a trailer-park teen about to turn sixteen. But a night of birthday celebration doesn’t go exactly as planned and descends into a night she’ll never be able to forget.

Now, on the cusp of her fortieth birthday, it appears Ellie has everything she ever wanted: a handsome husband; an accomplished, college-age stepdaughter; a beautiful ten-year-old girl; adorable and rambunctious six-year-old twin boys; lush, well-appointed homes in Los Angeles, Park City, and Palm Springs; a thriving career; and a dazzling circle of friends.

Except everything is not quite as perfect as it looks on the outside—Ellie is keeping many secrets. And hiding those skeletons has a cost, and it all comes to a head the night of her fabulous birthday party in the desert—where everyone who matters in her life shows up, invited or not. Old and new friends and frenemies, stepdaughters and business partners, ex-wives and ex-husbands congregate, and the glittering facade of Ellie’s life begins to crumble.

Beautifully paced and full of surprises, The Birthday Girl is an enthralling tale of a life lived in shadow and its unavoidable consequences.

The novel goes back and forth between the present, which is Ellie's 40th birthday party, and the past, which took place 24 years ago, when she was 16. The two characters in the past are named Leo and Mish, so it took me a while to figure out which one was Ellie ... and even then, there's a twist at the end and it turned out I was wrong.

I really like novels that flip-flop like that (go between past and present) and this one was no exception. The characters are written very well, too, and just when you think you've figured out who is who, and what the ending will be, de la Cruz flips the script on you.

4.5 stars out of 5.

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.

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.

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.