Happy Birthday

By: Danielle Steel

Narrated by: Angela Dawe

Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Valerie Wyatt is the queen of gracious living and the arbiter of taste with a successful TV show. Since her long-ago divorce, she’s worked hard to reach the pinnacle of her profession and to create a camera-ready life in her Fifth Avenue penthouse. So why is she so depressed? All the hours with her personal trainer, the careful work of New York’s best hairdressers, cosmetic surgeons, and her own God-given bone structure and great looks can’t fudge the truth or her lies about it: Valerie is turning sixty.

Valerie’s daughter, April, has no love life, no rest, and no prospect of that changing in the foreseeable future. Her popular one-of-a-kind restaurant in downtown New York, where she is chef and owner, consumes every ounce of her attention and energy. Ready or not, though, April’s life is about to change, in a tumultuous transformation that begins the morning it hits her: She’s thirty. And what does she have to show for it? A restaurant, no man, no kids.

Jack Adams once threw a football like a guided missile. Twelve years after retiring from the NFL, he is the most charismatic sports analyst on TV, a man who has his pick of the most desirable twentysomething women. But after a particularly memorable Halloween party, Jack wakes up on his fiftieth birthday, his back thrown out of whack, feeling every year his age. A terrifying act of violence, an out-of-the-blue blessing, and two extremely unlikely love affairs soon turn lives inside out and upside down. In a novel brimming with warmth and insight, beginning on one birthday and ending on another, Valerie, April, and Jack discover that life itself can be a celebration — and that its greatest gifts are always a surprise.

©2011 Danielle Steel (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Worst Narration

I listens to 4-5 different t books per month - different authors, different genres, different narrators. This is by far the worst narration. I only got about 30 minutes I and had to shut it off. The voice sounds almost like a computer generated one. Inflections are missing or misplaced. I liked the premise of the storyline but I could not get passed the awful voice.

Both the story and narrator were boring.

Not sure what I liked least the over the top gushy to-good-to-be-true story line or the rather boring performance by the narrator. This had no entertainment value at all.

Good overall plot but terribly written book

Would you try another book from Danielle Steel and/or Angela Dawe?

I am glad I purchased this audiobook on sale ($4.95), although it wasn't even worth that much. It was terribly written, as if the author got paid for the number of and's and but's used in the text. After the first few chapters, it was painful to listen to. The content was extremely repetitive and the story barely developed. It was almost as if the writer was given a plot outline and filled in the rest with repetitive, run-on sentences about how great everyone's life was and how much everyone loved each other. I never felt like more than a passive listener to the story. It lacked the depth required to draw the reader into the narrative.

Angela Dawe did a great job narrating the drivel she was given.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Happy Birthday?

Rather than cut, I would more fully develop the characters, their feelings, and their motives.

Any additional comments?

Danielle Steel's ability is sorely overrated. I will not read or listen to another one of her books again.

Very Disappointed

What would have made Happy Birthday better?

This story made the same points over and over again. The plot lacked any uniqueness. I suspect that if one listened to the first 2 chapters and then last chapter, the reader would know as much about the story as if she listened to the entire novel

Would you ever listen to anything by Danielle Steel again?

Probably not.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Angela Dawe?

I think most narrators would have declined the opportunity to present this novel.

Don't bother--unless you have trouble sleeping.

Redundant, preachy, hackneyed. After a character makes a two line statement, Ms. Steele seems to think she needs to write another two paragraphs to explain it to the reader. Danielle must have gotten paid by the word.

Pleasant but repetitive.

I listened for several chapters but finally gave up because it just said the same thing over and over... and over... and over. The narrator did a nice job.

Fairy Tale

This is a typical Danielle Steel story, only sprinkled with fairy dust. If you are 60 it will depress you, because you do not look this 60 year old. Reality it is not.

Danielle Steel's Happy Birthday is entertaining

Interesting story for light entertainment. My first Danielle Steel book .... I never thought I could be entertained by a story about a woman confronting the onset of later years in life.

empty calories

Store bought, sickeningly too sweet, wish I didn't eat the whole thing birthday cake, that's what comes to mind after barely making it through this tedious, redundant, go nowhere book. Did love the narrator, she was the best part.

I've never read any Danielle Steel and I don't plan to read more of her work.

Real this is not.

I'm usually a big fan of Danielle Steele, but I feel she's out of touch with reality. These characters are TOO perfect, nobody's that perfect. Right now I'm just hoping it will end.