Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Bye, Baby

Summary: A missing baby. A fraught friendship. A secret that can never be told.

On a brisk fall night in a New York apartment, 35-year-old Billie West hears terrified screams. It’s her lifelong best friend Cassie Barnwell, one floor above, and she’s just realized her infant daughter has gone missing. Billie is shaken as she looks down into her own arms to see the baby, remembering—with a jolt of fear—that she is responsible for the kidnapping that has instantly shattered Cassie’s world.

So begins the story of Billie and Cassie’s friendship–both in recent weeks, and since they met twenty-three years ago, in their small Hudson Valley hometown the summer before seventh grade. Once fiercely bonded by their secrets, including a traumatic, unspeakable incident in high school, Cassie and Billie have drifted apart in adulthood, no longer the inseparable pair they used to be. Cassie is married to a wealthy man, has recently become a mother, and is building a following as a fashion and lifestyle influencer. She is desperate to leave her past behind–including Billie, who is single and childless, and no longer fits into her world. Hurt and rejected by Cassie’s new priorities, Billie will do anything to restore their friendship, even as she hides the truth about what really happened the night the baby was taken.

Told in alternating perspectives in Lovering’s signature suspenseful style, Bye Baby confronts the myriad ways friendships change and evolve over time, the lingering echoes of childhood trauma, and the impact of women’s choices on their lifelong relationships.

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

After reading Too Good To Be True, I made a note to keep my eye out for Carola Lovering books. So when I was offered Bye, Baby, I didn’t hesitate to accept the Netgalley widget.

However, apparently I hesitated to read it since it’s been in my Netgalley queue for some time.

So I started it and I have to say I did like it, but I was also like ”
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY” some of the time!

Toxic friendship books can be hit and miss for me and this….. well, I’m not really sure how to classify it.

We’ve all had friendships that were crazy intense- and this was how this book started off being- these ladies had a crazy intense friendship and something happened that bonded them further; but then they started drifting apart and it was NOT a mutual drifting.

A few things you should know about me so my reaction to this book makes sense:

If you are repeatedly lying to me, girl bye!
Using your baby as an excuse all the time is not cool.
I will cut my own nose off to spite my face some times.

So I got Billie’s obsession with Cassie, but I didn’t truly get it. Girl, YOU have a pretty fantastic life (traveling all the time)

And Cassie- well at times she was so one dimensional, it wasn’t funny.

Kinda unsure if there was supposed to feel like a social commentary on women having kids vs not having kids vibe- but that seemed to be a point in the story that was hammered on a decent bit.

I am NOT anti-child nor a believer in just because you are a woman, you should be a mom. I am a believer in that you can think/expect to be a mom and then one day decide you don’t want to for whatever reason. And vice-versa, you can be all UGH about other people’s kids and want a ton of your own.

There were so many places in the book that I was literally all “No, don’t do that. For the love of everything, DO not be this unhinged.” It would be like a train wreck- I wanted to look away and yet, I had to know what would happen next.

What I liked:

The cover! I loved that.

How the story was laid out- I like flashbacks and those really helped to explain how the friendship got so crazy in current time.

The brief and shining time frame that I thought this book might turn into a thriller-ish type book.

Bottom line: If books about toxic friendships are your jam, then this book will work for you. It floated somewhere between 2.5 stars and 3 for me!

*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*