Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Bye, Baby

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering

12 reviews

marekemp's review against another edition

4.0

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

sarahstewreads's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

minimicropup's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This was fascinating! It was easy to sit back and listen to the story unfold.

Energy: Sanctimonious. Preoccupied. Hopeful.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Greenwich Village in Manhattan NYC

Perspective: The story centers around our two main characters before and after the events of October 13, 2023. The two were former besties - one is a child-free luxury travel consultant, the other a mommy influencer with a clothing boutique. We also get past timeline glances of their friend and family dynamics as preteens through to new adulthood.

🐩 Tail Wags: Character development. Writing style. Overall story.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

I love that the characters were described up front when the author had a specific image in mind. And it went beyond hair and eye colour.

The characters have depth. Cassie was insufferable to me, but I can see others loving the drama she brings and identifying with her situation, even if not her personality. I fully expected Billie to be unhinged, but surprisingly, nope. She even has some relatable moments around the crazy situation she’s gotten herself into.

There’s also great character development. And it doesn’t go so far that we gotta suspend all disbelief about how much they can change.

You can probably already guess this is very character-driven and more of a slow-burn friendship study. Not boring at all, but if you were expecting over-the-top unhinged fast-paced domestic thriller tropes, this isn’t that.

On that note, if you read a lot of thrillers and have come to expect suspense from characters investing tons of energy into hiding their secret pasts or withholding details from the reader, this is a refreshing break from that style.

🤓 Reader Role: Hearing the characters’ minds, but only what they choose to share or what they’re aware of. Kind of like we are meant to listen and then have time to analyze them.

🗺️ World-Building: Enough detail to imagine the neighbourhood, and easy to find the areas on Google Earth and YouTube.

🔥 Fuel: Why is Cassie suddenly excluding Billie? Why is Billie so eager to win Cassie’s favour? What will Billie do with Cassie’s baby? Why did she take it? In the second part, we get drama over what will happen to Billie after the baby incident and how she navigates the situation.

📖 Cred: Realistic to hyper-realistic.

🚙 Journey: People-watching in the park. Sometimes with binoculars. At night. In windows.

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Fallen leaves. Autumn breeze. Street food sizzling. Baby powder. Phone notifications. iPhone keyboard clicks. Selfies. Sirens. Baby crying.
Where Did It All Go Wrong friendship study
Psychoanalyzing characters and romance with a touch of understatement and irony

Content Heads-Up: Sexual content (consenting, pressured). Birth, breast-feeding. Sexual assault, abuse, rape (teen into adulthood). Dementia, early onset Alzheimer’s. Loss of a parent. Narcissism. Classism. Bullying (adults).

Rep: White and ambiguous Americans. Lesbian. Heterosexual. Cisgender. Childfree by choice.

📚 Format: Library Audio

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I selected this as one of my Book of the Month selections.
"Bye, Baby" follows Billie and Cassie two women who were once the best of friends. They were nearly inseparable in high school, but in their adult years they started to lead very different lives and drifted apart. Cassie married a very wealthy man, has a budding presence online as a social media influencer, and has recently given birth to her beautiful daughter. In Cassie's eyes, Billie no longer fits into her world. Billie has made a modest name for herself, but she is still hurt that Cassie was so quick to cut her out of her life. One unfortunate night, Cassie's daughter goes missing, and Billie has to hide what really happened to the baby.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I do not think this book can fairly be classified as a "thriller/mystery", but I do think it is a great hard-hitting contemporary. The reader knows pretty much from the moment it happens what really happened to Cassie's baby, so there is no mystery. There is a plotline from the past that arguably could be deemed "mysterious", but it is more that the true story is drawn out over many chapters.
Billie's and Cassie's friendship I found so fascinating. I am enthralled by the idea that we are friends with people when we are young because of proximity, but as adults we learn how little we actually had in common with them. Billie's and Cassie's relationship is a little more toxic than the average person's (hopefully), but that is definitely part of why it read so interestingly.
I was very pleased with the resolution of this story. I think Billie's and Cassie's friendship came full circle, and I really loved seeing both of them move forward following the kidnapping.
Once I got into this story, I could not put it down. It felt so relatable, and I felt so connected to both Billie and Cassie for different reasons.
I highly recommend this book, and I look forward to reading more from Carola Lovering in the future.

Content Warnings

nikkileighreads's review

I'm sure this is a fine story, but I can't continue on past about 8% in. I wish there was a trigger warning for the way age and fertility is talked about, as this can and will be triggering to some women. I also just don't like any of the characters. Cassie is a terrible friend and Billie is just flat out annoying.

Content Warnings

smileyjayna's review against another edition

2.25

challenging dark tense

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I love ghost* stories
* “ghosts” generally, not like 👻

I do not love the narrative voice (if that’s the right term for it, how it’s always “I give a strained smile” or “I jolt up in bed”) but I haven’t read anything else by Lovering so I’m guessing it was it was a choice for a thriller.

I DO like the way choices are dissected and discussed, how they do or do not belong to their characters, if that makes sense.

I like the pacing of the book overall, but I have not decided my opinion on the moments in which two characters experience the same event.

I think it was a sloppy choice to use weight as shorthand for vice/virtue (wade, ava (to a lesser extent)).

Content Warnings

msvernier's review against another edition

4.0

dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

rowanhill's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Features:

-Explores themes of toxic friendship, trauma bonding, motherhood, and growing apart.

-Starts at the climax

-Complicated characters coming to terms with their choices

-Multiple character perspectives

Billie and Cassie have always been inseparable…until they weren’t. This book about two women growing apart had me captivated from the start. Though there was definitely plenty of tension that kept me turning the pages, it is not really a true ‘thriller’ in my book. The main focus, and certainly the thing that I cared most about, is the past and present relationship of Billie and Cassie. In exploring this fraught friendship, Lovering covers many themes such as the decision to be a mother or not, dealing with trauma, socioeconomic status, the realities of being an influencer, and so much more. Not all of the ideas introduced are fully explored, but I loved having them there to add nuance and complexity to the characters and their relationship to one another. Ultimately, this is a book that I absolutely devoured and definitely recommend to readers who like stories focused on complicated relationships.

A relatable experience despite unrelatable circumstances

Though I found Billie and Cassie difficult to like as people, there are also things about both their experiences that I found extremely relatable. I think most of us have experienced growing apart from someone we were close to growing up. Though Billie’s fixation on her dwindling friendship with Cassie makes everything feel more sudden and extreme, Lovering does a good job conveying the parts of their relationship that will ultimately pull them apart from the very start. I am not a fan of Cassie, but I know people who have made a similar decision to leave their past, and the people in it, behind. Whether I agree with her particular choices or not, her overall desire to reinvent herself is something that I find myself sympathizing with.

Many of the other themes that Lovering explores through these characters I found very real as well. However, the more extreme actions, thoughts, and choices of Billie and Cassie that create extra tension also makes them less relatable. Despite being fully invested in the book, it took me quite a while to stop actively disliking these characters and allow myself to recognize the things that had been keeping me invested in their story. Once I did, I found a lot of beautiful work to like.

A little too ‘on the nose’ at times

This book explores a lot of different themes while the characters try to navigate their relationships and challenges life throws their way. In order to fit everything in and add additional drama, a number of elements are oversimplified and/or exaggerated. As a result, it is easy to miss the more subtle work that makes the characters and situation more nuanced and interesting. I am not someone who feels that every single thread introduced needs to be fully explored. However, there are definitely some that seem to have been added purely for dramatic effect and others that could have led to interesting development but ultimately get ignored in favor of a more straightforward presentation. Ultimately, the desire to make this feel like a thriller undermined its potential as a character novel and so it gets caught somewhere in between. Obviously, this didn’t prevent me from rating the book highly, but it does make it less than a perfect read.

Content Warnings

pomoevareads's review

4.0

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Lovering has crafted a well paced story of two best friends, who are no longer best friends-but only one of them seems to know that. Jealousy, hurt, and misdirected threat, are at the heart of Bye, Baby.

Billie and Cassie have a long and complicated friendship. They hold secrets and are connected by the bonds of these secrets. But when Cassie marries the blue blooded trust fund receiving Grant and begins hanging out with his crowd and posting her grandiose lifestyle with her Instagram followers, Billie is left to wonder where or if she still fits into Cassie’s life. Then one night Cassie holds a big birthday bash, after telling Billie that she was staying in and having a quiet night, and the uninvited Billie discovers this while checking Cassie’s Instagram stories. During the party, Cassie’s infant daughter, Ella, goes missing. The story opens with Billie sitting on a sofa with Ella in her arms.

Taut and juicy, Bye, Baby delivered the drama. If not for my brain telling me I needed sleep, I would have continued reading this one all the way through in one go.

My favourite structure of before and now and sustained pacing made this book a solid read that I would highly recommend to other readers. There are a few trigger warnings outside of the obvious kidnapped baby; I will post the warnings in my StoryGraph review.

Thank you to @stmartinspress for reaching out to me to offer me this book, knowing that I would enjoy it and to @netgalley for the ARC. Bye, Baby publishes March 5, 2024. I am sharing my honest opinions on this selection.

Content Warnings

kvillanueva's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

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