‘Birthday’ is the latest novel by Meredith Russo and is described on the cover as ‘A love story 18 years in the making’. As I started reading the book and with the blurb fresh in my mind I began to feel I knew where the story was going between Eric and lifelong friend Morgan, but that didn’t stop me enjoying this emotional and at times hard hitting novel. The journey of how there were going to get there had me hooked. The novel follows the lives of close friends Eric and Morgan, dropping into their lives the same day each year for six years which happens to be their shared birthday. ‘Birthday’ explores the relationship between the two friends as both wrestle with the pains of growing up as teenagers in small town America, and for Morgan there is the added issue of realising his true gender and what to do about it, along with dealing with the death of his mother. This format worked well, and you could clearly see the development of the two characters into teenagers each year.