51 pages • 1 hour read
Penelope DouglasBirthday Girl
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The Subgenre of Age-Gap Romance
Birthday Girl is often described as a steamy, age-gap romance with elements of forbidden and taboo love. Such romances deal with a large age difference between the protagonists. Typically, the male partner in a heteronormative love story is older by at least a decade. Age-gap romances also tend to have female leads who are quite young, typically between the ages of 18 and 28. In Birthday Girl, Jordan is 19 to Pike’s 38 years. An age-gap romance explores forbidden, boundary-pushing love. The love is depicted as so strong that it transcends the limits of age and social propriety. The age difference between the protagonists exists as an obstacle to be overcome in the path of true love. At the end of such romances, the unlikely pairing is happy and successful, showing that love conquers all.
In an age-gap romance, the younger protagonist seeks order and security from their older partner, while the older partner looks to the younger to provide a fresh chance and new perspective on life. In Birthday Girl, Jordan likes the fact that Pike runs his own business, has a beautiful house, and picks up after himself, all suggesting that he has life figured out. Pike likes that Jordan snaps him out of his inertia, infusing life, new music, and new interests in his world. Contemporary age-gap romances, like Birthday Girl, also sometimes touch upon taboo themes, such as age play or role play. Pike is also a paternal figure. He is not just any other older man but is Cole’s father, making Jordan’s attraction for Pike seem like longing for a father figure. Pike acts protective of Jordan as if she were a daughter whose virtue he was protecting.
Some critics find these aspects problematic. The age-gap narrative tends to feature a power imbalance between the protagonists, especially since the younger protagonist can be as young as 18. In Birthday Girl, Jordan is also a student who struggles to make ends meet, while Pike is a well-established entrepreneur, immediately setting up asymmetry in their relationship. Further, Jordan has little family support and no place to stay. For her, part of Pike’s appeal is his house, in which he is letting her stay free of rent. This muddles the relationship between them and raises questions about equality in the relationship. Another element for critical exploration is why mainstream age-gap romances tend to not only be heteronormative but also feature firmly established gendered norms, such as an older male lead. Age-gap stories between older women and younger men are uncommon in the romance genre.
Critical Context: Gender Roles in Mainstream Romantic Fiction
Many contemporary popular romantic novels, such as Birthday Girl, tend to reinforce traditional gender norms. In Birthday Girl, the female lead is much younger than the male and looks up to him for providing order, security, and guidance, while the male lead looks to his female partner for beauty, newness, and youth. When Pike notices Jordan’s good looks, he refers to Jordan as a “hot, young woman, walking around in her short shorts” (211). Jordan also describes herself as a “girly girl” who likes ultra-feminine things. Her attraction to Pike is depicted along gendered lines, with her admiring his powerful physique and dominant manner. It can be argued that depictions such as these perpetuate gender stereotypes, with men as strong providers and women as naïve ingenues.
However, another reading could assert that popular romantic fiction is often a fantasy. Readers know that the plotlines would be untenable and problematic in the real world and that fiction creates a space to enjoy archetypal fantasies in a safe way. Further, women readers of romantic fiction may say that the genre is subjected to more scrutiny than traditional, masculine movies featuring violence, guns, and car chases. Further, contemporary romance writers like Douglas take care to balance genre tropes with strong female leads. In Birthday Girl, Jordan is hardworking and proud, as well as passionate about her line of work. The ending of the novel sees Jordan not just partnered and happy but also successful in her career, with Pike having emotionally supported her all along. In this way, Pike subverts the expectation of the female partner being the one who supports the male’s life in the outside world. Thus, writers of age-gap romances often put their own spin on the traditional “happily ever after” of the genre.
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By Penelope Douglas
