Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas

DNF @ 12%

I don't know what it is about this author. I keep forgetting how much I disliked her books until I pick up the next one. The premises always sound amazing and usually the beginnings are fine, but as soon as the love interest appears, the whole story just falls apart and becomes a hot mess.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't expecting anything highbrow about a smutty erotica novel where the girlfriend of this loser ends up falling for said loser's dad when the loser basically messes up his life and they all have to move in with Loser Sr. Loser Sr. had Loser when he was really young, so even though he's old, he's still hot. That's really important-- he's a Daddy, but a young Daddy.

You know, so it's not gross that he's one of the olds.

Douglas also does something that I only really put together in this book, where all of her characters are into things that Douglas was probably into when she was young (80s movies, 80s and 90s songs), which are things I like, but I'm not a teenager, and it always ends up feeling kind of out of touch. Kids these days are into Zendaya and Tik Tok and Billie Eilish, an artist this "not like other girls" heroine would probably like. Even if she would never admit it until someone pried her air pods out of her cold dead ears.

This was supposed to be a buddy read with my friend, Deidra, but the book was annoying me-- and not in a "so bad it's fun" way, but in an "OMG NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN" sort of way, so I ended up jumping ship at 12% because I'm a bad friend. But life's too short to read bad books.

1 to 1.5 out of 5 stars