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🍼 REVIEW: BYE, BABY 🍼

By Carola Lovering

📖 SUMMARY: Billie and Cassie are best friends from adolescence to adulthood. But, like many female friendships, they begin to drift apart as they take different paths. Billie is desperate to hold on to the friendship, but Cassie, now a wealthy married mom, wants nothing to do with Billie and the past she represents. It seems Cassie may get her wish, until one night, when her infant daughter goes missing… and Billie is the one who took her.

💭 THOUGHTS: I will always drop everything to read Carola’s new work! She is the master of writing books that made my heart rate absolutely skyrocket AND the master of writing about toxic relationships, and in this novel she tackles female friendship. Cassie’s and Billie’s friendship is fraught with secrets and resentment, which leads to *that* night when Billie kidnaps Cassie’s baby. Some parts that described the inner workings of their friendship felt soooo real — for me, it was the middle/high school sections. Also, this book touched on one of the impossible dilemmas women face: do we choose to be childless career women or devoted mothers? And is it possible to be friends with someone who chose the other lifestyle? I’d like to believe that the answer to that last question is yes… but don’t look to Cassie and Billie as an example! P.S. reading this book also encouraged me to curb my addiction to Instagram because YIKES.

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the advanced copy. This comes out 3/5/24!

✨ MADE ME FEEL: extremely anxious, even more than usual 😅

🥰 YOU’LL ENJOY IF: you liked FIREFLY LANE but also love domestic suspense novels, you liked Lovering’s TELL ME LIES

Whoa. This book is great. Definitely a new premise. You’re even told the ‘who’ of the ‘whodunnit’ in the blurb but the story is written so well & very engrossing so you have to finish it (quickly) to find out the outcome. May be my very favorite Carola Lovering book to date.

What a wild ride! Billie and Cassie were high school besties and as time moves on people change. Life changes. Cassie was Billie's protector during her teenage years. Billie is obsessed with Cassie's adult life. Cassie has a huge social media following and a beautiful baby and no longer has time for Billie.
The baby is kidnapped during a party and it just so happens that Billie wasn't included in the invite to the illusive party. As far fetched as the kidnapping scene was, the book has kept me interested and pulled at the heart strings.
Thank you Net Galley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

This book was well written but it was definitely not for me. It is definitely not a mystery or a thriller, but more of a look at the changing dynamics of friendships and adult motivations. There is a mystery regarding the main characters pasts, but it's quickly explained and is fairly easy to spot long before that. The whole missing baby thing that the book is banking isn't even a thing as there is no missing baby. Not really.

The book shifts back and forth between the viewpoints of 2 characters, and one of those characters is absolutely awful. She's shallow, insuffurable, selfish, and clueless. She was painful to read and I wanted nothing good to happen to or for her. And the constant fashion name dropping was overdone and annoying. The other character suffers from some serious low self-seteem when it comes to friendships, and frankly seems to thrive on masochism. Overall it was tiring and uninteresting.

The story really was over by the 50% mark in the book and the other pages were just filler. Overall the book was fine but I'm not particularly interested in reading anything from this author again.

An insiders lens into the complexities of a female childhood friendship and the secrets and heartbreak that arise out of traumatic events. Alternating between both women’s viewpoints, you will question who is the villain. Do the choices we make in life make us victims or heroines?

I have read Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering as if it were a marathon, reading in every spare moment and far too late into the night. The emotions this novel dredges up are almost overwhelming at times. Carola Lovering describes characters that are so relatable and true to life, lovable even when they aren't likeable. She manages to put words to emotions that are almost beyond description. Bye, Baby explores the topics of friendship, marriage, and parenthood with understanding and maturity, honesty and complexity. Lovering also explores the difference between our public personas and our private lives, which become even more convoluted with social media. This novel has almost gutted me because it has described feelings I am not sure I could articulate with a brutal transparency I can only ever glimpse sometimes at 3:00 a.m. I read several books a week, and rarely does a book make a lasting impression. However, I will be thinking about Bye, Baby for a long time to come. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this book a rating of a million.

This book had me frantically flipping pages from start to finish. Couldn’t put it down because I just was never sure where it was going and how it would end. The author did a superb job keeping the reader in suspense trying to figure out how it would all tie together at the end. While it wasn’t in a neat a tidy bow, it was a satisfying end to a very toxic relationship.

This is very relatable for me and it might be for you as well. This is about a friendship that shows the struggles of what happens when we start to change over time. Not all relations, even with our close friends, can be all rainbows & roses.

Billie, if you where out there somewhere, I would be searching for you. You are me in the mirror. Most of us keep our secrets on the inside but Cassie and Billie have a dark secret that they have with each other. You will start to question if "that" is what the dark secret is.

This was a wonderful read and not able to figure out until the end what their secrets was. You will get trapped in this book until you are finally done with it.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this advance reader.

First off, this is not a mystery/thriller. Not that the story isn’t without merit, just know that going into it.

Have you ever struggled with a friendship because it changed? Cassie and Billie have been joined at the hip, until the birth of a child changes everything. The dependency of Billie continued on Cassie and that is what the story revolves around. Cassie desperately wanted fame, fortune, and moving in the upmost circles. Billie, who was an introvert, looking in from the outside, was a woman with secrets that made her even more dependent.

This book is doesn't have a ton of suspense, but characters you’ll love-hate and a setup that’s irresistible.

Bye, Baby 🗽🍸🍷🍼
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Author: @carolatlovering
Pub Date: 3.5.2024
@stmartinspress

Cassie & Billie are your textbook best friends. Drunk nights eating Celeste pizza on the floor. The first person you want to call when anything happens in your life. Until, one big blow out and a major life change changes everything. Billie frequents Cassie’s IG story to watch her life from afar; underwhelmed by the mundane details Cassie feels the need to share with the world. Cassie & Billie’s relationship has slowly drifted apart. But, even more so now that Cassie is married with a baby. This alternating perspective novel may be one of Carola’s best yet. She has easily become one of my favorite psychological thriller authors. This is definitely one of those “can’t put down” novels. I devoured this. It felt like I was reading a really long text message from a best friend.

After spending the past couple months binging on Lovering’s past novels I was thrilled to get this one, and it certainly did not disappoint. Fast paced story of two close friends who have grown apart. Since the summer before 7th grade Cassie and Billie have been inseparable, until they became adults and Cassie starts pulling away from Billie for reasons unknown. Even though they share a painful secret they have both sworn to take to their grave, they both pledge to be there for each other and even be the other’s bridesmaid, when that time comes. While Cassie continues to ghost Billie for many major events in her life, Billie does the unthinkable in a moment of weakness and has no idea how to untangle herself from the mess she has created. No one writes about emotions and friendships better than Lovering.

This is most definitely not a mystery/thriller, despite the blurb and the unfortunate title. Not that the story isn’t without merit, just know that going into it. Best to just avoid the blurb as it gives too much away.

This is an exploration of obsession and a toxic friendship that defies understanding - until you realize the reasons behind it.

The first paragraph of the description of this fantastic book reads, "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."

That description sucked me and the book itself kept me sucked in from page 1! I read this book in about a day and a half because I just couldn't put it down. It's a fantastic examination of friendship and the ways our lives diverge as we grow older, with much suspense and jaw-dropping scenes throughout. Highly recommend!

In 48 hours, I finished this book.

I could not put it down. I read it while I made my coffee, changed diapers, made lunch, threw a load of laundry in, and went about a million daily activities. It was that good and had me on the edge of my seat.

I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as a thriller since we find out pretty early on what was going on, and there were no end surprises. But it still kept me fully captivated to find out what was going to happen. Lovering does an incredible job weaving a story and developing characters that are flawed and imperfect, but that you still find yourself rooting for.

Definitely a book I’d recommend, and will be on the edge of my seat waiting for whatever book Lovering writes next!

Billie and Cassie are lifelong friends who have recently started to drift apart. They are bonded by a secret that occurred when they were in high school in their small hometown of Hudson Valley. Billie is having a hard time letting go of the friendship while Cassie seems ready to leave her past behind her now that she has found a rich husband, given birth to a perfect daughter, and is well on her way to becoming a successful influencer. On the eve of Cassie’s 35th birthday, Billie finds out that Cassie is having a birthday bash that Billie was not invited to. In a moment of weakness and insecurity, Billie makes a decision that will send Cassie’s life into a tailspin.

Sigh, I just love Carola Lovering. I flew through this book! Something about her writing is captivating to me. This book is extremely character driven so if you want to read a story where you get to know the main characters inside and out, this is the book for you. The story is told in alternating perspectives and timelines which allows you a better look into Billie and Cassie’s thought processes. I felt like I knew Billie and Cassie so well by the end of this book and I found myself relating to both of them at times. I really connected to Billie and the struggles that she went through with her mom along with several other things that we have in common. I was rooting for her the whole book even though she makes her fair share of mistakes. Also, I have to mention that the author included 3 of my favorite things in the book: Taylor Swift, Tatcha, and Fresca. I was so excited each time these were brought up! I cannot wait to see what Carola comes up with next and I will continue to be a lifelong reader :)

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bye, Baby was such an interesting read. I told myself I would read this closer to the release date, but I read a few chapters and was hooked. I finished this book in less than 24 hours, the story was realistic, and I was on the edge of my seat wanting to read what led Billie to do what she did. This story is told in a dual pov, switching between the main characters Cassie and Billie. It also alternates in past and present timelines giving us insights into how Cassie and Billie's friendship started and how it got to where it is in the present.

This is about friendship, gossip, drama, and the lengths characters go to keep people in their lives and feel like they belong. The characters make mistakes and decisions that are not good, but I came out of this book empathizing with Billie and her actions. The author did a good job weaving everything together, and the writing was great. I was distracted by the past timeline, it was helpful in knowing how the friendships came together, but I think there was so much going on that I focused a lot on the present. I liked the end because it showed that some friendships aren't meant to be, and some people are toxic to be around.

Overall this was a compelling story about unraveling secrets, drama, and the history of a friendship. It wasn't really a thriller, but it was still an interesting and suspenseful book. Thank you, St. Martins Press for this arc for an honest review. I will be posting my review on my blog and social media closer to the release date.

I received an ARC of this novel, and I really enjoyed it. It was suspenseful and the characters were nuanced, if not always likeable. The book was fast paced and I sped through it in two days. I loved the different timelines as they really gave depth to the complicated friendship between Cassie and Billie. I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author.

Thank you St Martin’s Press for a ARC of Lovering’s new book coming out in 2024.

Cassie and Billie have been friends forever. One night Cassie’s baby goes missing only to discover Billie has her. What could have made Billie do it?

I struggled with this one. Not much of a suspense or thriller, its more a story of broken friendship. The beginning grabbed my interest when a baby has gone missng, but shortly after you know who did it and and then why. But lacked all the suspense and mystery between.

Carola Lovering?! Yes, give us more! Another compelling read! I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with your characters. Exploring the toxic friendship, along with the suspense will have you flipping through this one quickly! Excellent. #autobuyauthor