Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #435378 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Independent
'The literary equivalent of a goodie bag'

Oh! Magazine
'Women's fiction doesn't get any better than this ... Sharp, funny and touching. Give it a go.'

Hello! Magazine
'Acutely funny and wonderfully observed, Annabel Giles' debut is a cracker'

Customer Reviews

A Spoonful of Sugar
I picked this up because I needed something light to get into the holiday mood.

The blurb reads, "Six women, six birthdays. But will they get what they need, or what they deserve?" The novel is in six whopping chapters, one for each character, whose ages range from ten to sixty. All the characters are linked to one another in one way or another, which reveals itself as the story unfolds. It was a fun, easy read with enough variety to keep me entertained on my sun-lounger. Each character is quite an extreme typecast of somebody we all know or are, and the traits of the protagonists are explored wonderfully deeply so that they are on the whole likeable and one can be empathetic to them.

An unchallenging, enjoyable read for those who like their fiction bubbly, frivolous and sparky. It did its job- I am fully in the holiday mood now.

Superb Read
The linking of so many lives keeps you rivetted to this book and never sure of who will appear next or where or when. Excellent for long summer days or winter evenings as you'll need tome to read it not wanting to put it down.

Nothing more than a bad soap opera really...
Annabelle Giles's 'BIRTHDAY GIRLS' has a promising concept, following six women at different stages in their lives in the days leading up to their birthdays and finding out whether they will get exactly what they want or exactly what they deserve. However, with the exception of 10 year-old Scarlett and 50 year-old Millicent, there was not one likable character in the book. Moreover, the way each woman's story connected was sometimes very unbelievable...much like in a soap opera. This one is having an affair with that ones husband, this ones birth mother happens to be so and so, and the long ago one night stand happened to be with this one's dead husband. It all became a bit implausible.

Scarlett is spending her 10th birthday in a hospital bed of all places but the bad influence in the next bed may cause her to grow up faster than she or her parents are ready for.

Hairdresser Della is turning 21 and just wants to use her bad girl ways to snag the man of her dreams...unfortunately the mother she barely knows is cramping her style...maybe she needs a pick me up in the form of one of her clients husbands.

Sophie is trying very hard to salvage her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her sister, her mother and even her hairdresser. Turning 30 has never been so difficult!

Jessica Rose is turning 40...uh 35 *wink, wink* and this former actress is having a hard time trying to get back into the limelight maybe the star studded birthday bash she is trowing herself will help her get back on top...or will she end up sinking to new lows?

Millicent just wants to return home to the Caribbean for her 50th birthday. Yet with no home to return to she is finding that London is not such a welcoming place after all.

Constance just wants to disappear for her 60th birthday. But she will not do so without shaking up her families lives a bit first.

'BIRTHDAY GIRLS', I will admit, made me chuckle a few times and did get more interesting once I got to Millicent's section but overall that is not enough for me to actually recommend this book. My biggest issue with 'BIRTHDAY GIRLS, and the reason I had a hard time getting through it, was because most of the characters did not have any redeemable qualities to speak of. Unfortunately I don't think that I will be reading much from Annabel Giles in the future.