Birthday Girls (Annabel Giles)****

So I've failed slightly at posting every Sunday without fail...

This is a very cleverly-written and interesting book with a most unfortunate opening sentence which even more unfortunately comes true. In detail. Let’s put it this way, if I’d read the opening sentence in the shop, I would not have bought it. Emetophobes beware.

Birthday Girls follows the story of six women on their birthdays, ranging from ten-year-old Scarlett to Constance, who is sixty. They don’t all have their birthday on the same day but it follows the six woman over the course of just over a year so Scarlett is eleven by the end of the book. Four of them are in one family, the other two are from a different family but one of the male characters is sleeping with a woman from each family so they’re all kind of related in ways they discover as the book progresses. They also have various acquaintances in common – it’s quite fun when various minor characters start popping up in different places.

The book is divided up into sections with each section taking place on a particular person’s birthday. Most of each section is told from the point of view of the birthday girl although by the time you get to the final section, which tells you about Constance’s birthday, the POV jumps about a bit more as all the stories gradually resolve themselves.

It’s a really interesting way of telling a story and it’s also one that works perfectly well for the story – or stories – Annabel Giles tells. I don’t know if the idea for the plot or the narrative structure came first – often when the narrative structure is the first idea, it can be difficult finding a story to fit it and when the plot comes first, it can be equally difficult to shoehorn it all into something with such a rigid structure. But the two fit really well together.

I also like the characters. They’re all so completely different and in some ways they live in different worlds but the connections between the characters are still convincing. Scarlett can be a bit annoying (she’s a bit young and cute) but I really liked the other characters. Some people might find Sophie a bit weak, wet and embarrassing, Della certainly has her bitchy side, Constance seems a bit mad and Millicent, until you know the full story, can seem very stupid, desperate and a bit of a doormat, in a snobby sort of way (if you can imagine such a thing). As for Jessica, she is a bit of a sad wannabe and no-one in the book seems to like her.

But I really liked all of them. Even Scarlett isn’t that bad. Sophie is sweet and loving, and very brave in her way. Della’s determined independence is both admirable and moving because you can tell she’s hurting under the surface. Constance is quite mad but delightfully intrepid and with-it. Millicent is an amazing woman, with great strength, intelligence, courage and patience. And I had a lot of sympathy for Jessica, who finally has to accept she’s not a big star who’s loved by millions. It’s a very sad story and I always felt she was more a victim of circumstances than actually being a horrible person. It’s like being a star was all she knew how to do.

There are problems with the book. Sometimes the birthdays can end on a bit of a cliffhanger and you might never find out what happened next because the story has jumped forward a few months and while the event was hugely important at the time, it has paled into insignificance by then. Also the big final twist at the end was something I saw coming a mile off. I think if I’d worked it out very near the end, it might have had more impact but as it was, I had enough time to come to the conclusion that it was far too coincidental that things worked out as they did and it was a bit of a soap-opera moment and the book might have been stronger without it.

I did enjoy it though.