Thank you to NetGalley, Carola Lovering and St Martin’s Press for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This was more of a slow burn novel and I didn’t know how interested in it I would continue to be, but something about these characters just held me hostage. I needed to know what happened and I flew through the easy to read chapters filled with this toxic friendship.

Another St Martin's Press title I can't give feedback for. I did buy the audiobook to listen to and support the author. I'm hoping at some point St Martins Press will make a public statement to denounce racism , homophobia and islamophobia. .

Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel. The subject matter was too intense for me and I was not able to finish.

Bye, Baby starts off with Billie making a shocking decision. The opening makes her seem like the villain. But as the story unravels and we learn more about Billie, she’s not the horrible person she seemed to be and I was desperately hoping for a good explanation for her actions. When we reach the halfway point, it is nothing but anxiety. I could not put the book down until I found out what the consequences would be.

I was frustrated with both Billie and Cassie throughout. Cassie was selfish, self-centered, and too focused on her image and status. Billie was obsessed, co-dependent, and impulsive. These dynamics created a toxic friendship that led to some bad decision making on both ends.

There are a lot of topics addressed in this book including Alzheimer’s, losing a parent, SA, friendship, losing friendship, stages of life, motherhood, abortion, choosing to be childless. It was heartbreaking, sickening, hopeful, stressful. A nightmare of a rollercoaster that I didn’t want to get off.

This was a really strong, bingeable psychological thriller all about toxic friendships. the book opens with Billie kidnapping her best friend’s baby - but we go back in time to find out exactly the whats and whys of how it came to be. I found both characters really interesting, and there is so much more to the story than it originally seems, I thought having the ‘reveal’ laid out so early in the book might make it boring, but there are so many layers to unfold and I had to see how everything came together in the end.

Cassie and Billie have been best friends since high school. When their lives start to drift apart, Billie is hurt and soon becomes obsessive by Cassie's blatant avoidance. She makes alarming moves to get her attention.

This is a page turner, and the influencer lifestyle of Cassie is a great storyline to amp up the suspense. I wouldn't categorize this as a mystery, but it's suspenseful. The chapters go back and forth in time from Cassie and Billie. It's a great format to get background information on the characters. The ending is very satisfying.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the arc.

BYE, BABY
rating: 4/5
genre: suspense/drama
in the mood for: bravo drama with depth, exploring female friendships, messy situations, anxiety lol

if you plan to read this book go in knowing it is NOT a thriller, unlike what it has been marketed as, and should be classified as a drama/suspense imo. setting expectations is so important and i think can contribute to the overall enjoyment of a book. since i've read TELL ME LIES i was expecting a messy drama with lots of character development, and that is exactly what we get here!

BYE, BABY follows two best friends, Billie and Cassie, who have been inseparable since childhood due to a traumatic event. in present day Billie and Cassie are experiencing a shift in their friendship ever since Cassie became a mother and her social media following grew. this change has left Billie feeling hurt and desperate enough to take Cassie's daughter on evening. the reader is immersed in Billie and Cassie's past and present through alternating timeline and dual POV.

i enjoyed how Lovering explored female friendship here, specifically their complexities and how they inevitably change as we grow older, have families, and priorities shift. i thought the book was very relatable as a 30 year old woman who does not have kids yet but is surrounded by friends who do. also a huge plus that Lovering shined light on BOTH sides of the spectrum with the dual POV - Billie is in her 30s and unsure if children are in her future, and Cassie is a new mother. i never felt that Lovering was 'favoring' one or the other, but instead gave great perspective from both women.

for me, part 1 was a slow build and i was worried Billie, Cassie, and the cast of characters would be unlikeable and surface level but that def changed especially as you get close to part 2. at that point i thought the characters became much more relatable and i truly COULD NOT PUT THE BOOK DOWN! i was beyond anxious for all people involved. if you like messy situations then you will thrive here haha! imo this is a perfect book for the mature reader. i'm not sure i would have cared or had an emotional understanding when i was in my teens/early twenties.

wow! this was so fun to read and kept my attention! i can’t wait to recommend it to my book club as they love the thriller genre. this dual pov kept it so interesting between the friends and exploring their past and current ftiendship.

Bye, Baby (ARC)
Carola Lovering
4⭐️

Pub Date: 3/5/2024

This is more of a domestic drama with some suspense rather than a Thriller to me. However, it doesn't take away the fact that I enjoyed this tremendously and had wanted to come back to it whenever I'm away from the book. It's dual POV, one of Cassie and one of Billie, which makes the whole plot and emotions more cohesive rather than just getting this from one POV. I was very distressed reading this because of how toxic this friendship is as well as the social media aspect. I'm not a fan of Cassie at all! I have big, unfriendly feelings towards her and honestly, no sympathy for her 🫣. She's a bully, a stuck-up, and I really felt like the whole "problem" wouldn't have come about if she wasn't such a bish to begin with. I felt a whole plethora of emotions reading this book. Mostly anger for a lot of people, and nervousness for Billie. I'm a fan of the writing style. At exactly 50%, the tone changes. Very noticeable and I thought it was great. Without spoiling anything, I will just say that the ending was too kind for me. I wish there was more to it. But I'm actually relieved for how it ended.

I’m a forever fan of dual POV and timeline novels, but add in some layers of suspense, stalking, and obsessive friendships and you have me completely sold!

This book really highlighted how oversharing on social media can be weaponized against someone, and the extreme levels people will go to in order to achieve that false sense of connection. I was hooked on Billie and Cassie’s friendship from the start and needed to know everything that happened in their past to get their relationship to where it stood currently.

The tension started to build early on in this one and the pacing was really well done! I didn’t want to put my Kindle down until the very end!

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for my ecopy of this book to read and review!

A stunning look at friendship, betrayal & the secrets we keep. "Bye, Baby" from Carola Lovering will likely be one of my favorite reads of 2024. Her writing evokes a pulse-pounding feeling without stating the obvious. A thriller at its core, this book will keep you up at night if for nothing more than its realistic, terrifying plot. You're going to want to keep turning the pages because these characters are not at all what they seem.

Cassie and Billie have been the best of friends since childhood, and bonded together in inexplicable ways. They supported each other through the good, bad and VERY bad, leading to a drastic choice that has both bonded them for life and conversely pulled them apart over time. Cassie would love nothing more than to escape her past, but for Billie, it’s not that simple. Now in their mid-thirties, Cassie is living the dream-life she always aspired to: a wealthy, well-pedigreed husband, multiple homes, a new baby, a curated clothing boutique that bears her name, a squad of moneyed mommy friends and thousands of followers who savor her every move as an Instagram lifestyle influencer. Billie, on the other hand, is single, childless by choice, and working as a luxury travel consultant. She has a nice home, a new relationship with a cop named Alex and her own small circle of down-to-earth good friends. POVs of Cassie and Billie which provides the reader the opportunity to understand each of their point of views and concepts around them. Friendship, secrets, lies, and one fateful night set the stage for the plot to unravel at the end. Friendships change, people change, and that can be hard when you were once close to someone, when you spent all your time together, but time and circumstances have created a chasm in our relationship. I found this to be a thought-provoking and well written book. This would make a great book club selection as there is a lot to discuss within the pages of this book.


Thanks to St. Martins Press, NetGalley and author Carola Lovering

This was a lot different than I expected. What they give away in the synopsis is, in some ways, a relatively small part of the story. The friendship itself, the past, and aftermath are bigger parts of the story.

What I didn’t expect was to feel sympathy, especially MORE sympathy than Cassie, for Billie. Don’t get me wrong, what Cassie went through was terrible and she in no way deserved the fear she experienced as a result of Billie’s actions. But.. as a character in general, I was not a fan.

I wasn’t prepared for rooting for Billie though. I thought there was no way there wouldn’t be anything other than a clear bad guy. But it’s not that simple.

Even though you know what happens and it resolves itself really quickly, there’s so much tension as you wonder how is this ever going to work out ok? It was a different kind of suspense and I was very invested in it.

I really enjoyed this one! But saying that I seen this one marketed as a thriller and I didn’t really find it a thriller, I found it more of a women lit or literary fiction, the “thrilling” part wasn’t really thrilling and I wanted more of the ending! I did really enjoy the toxic Friendship between Billie and Cassie. I thought the dynamic was so good and kept me wanting to read! I thought how the time line changed was smooth and I loved going back to the now and the present. This had me wanting to know what happened and not stopping till I found out. I loved how both characters were unlikeable in a way I found Cassie more unlikeable than Billie though! I wanted to root for Billie but how she couldn’t let Cassie go no matter how many times Cassie showed her true Colors. I also loved the aspect for money and influencer status played into this! I think with influencers so big in this world now that seeing what it can actually do to someone and how letting accesses to thousands and millions of people to you’re every day life can be dangerous and the psychological effects!

Compelling characters that are just as easy to love as they are to hate, or hate to love... A story of those friendships from your younger years that you might outgrow but a shared past, sometimes a dark secret, holds them together. I enjoyed reading about Billie and Cassie and felt satisfied with the ending in a way it's often hard to be with these types of stories. I think the author was deliberate in creating characters that we're supposed to have mixed emotions about, and her story telling would make me look for more of her work.

I really liked this one a lot!

Character-driven stories don’t usually do it for me but this one kept me hooked until the end. The writing flowed and both characters had their share of secrets & flaws.

Dual POV, timeline jumping, and set in both NYC & upstate NY - some of my favorite things in books.

Is it weird to say I was rooting for Billie, even after she kidnapped Cassie’s baby? And that’s not a spoiler, it’s in the synopsis.

Thank you @stmartinspress and @Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Bye, Baby really surprised me. I was expecting it to be more of a thriller, and while it was suspenseful, it was truly about female friendship evolving from childhood through the many early phases of adulthood. I won’t forget Cassie and Billie anytime soon. They were layered and complex and just real, even if they weren’t always likable. The dissolution of friendship that was like family is painfully real. There’s a central conflict that’s addressed as soon as the first chapter, and I kept eagerly reading through the alternating perspectives and time periods because I just had to know what happens next. The supporting characters were well drawn out, and the villain from Billie and Cassie’s past was just purely vile. I felt so much sympathy for Billie with all she endured as a very young lady, but I also felt great sympathy for Cassie who was enduring the present conflict. She has a very interesting perspective on being an influencer - just how safe are you when nearly 50K people know you and your family’s whereabouts. Everything played out realistically and I wouldn’t change a thing. Really excellent book that I couldn’t put down!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for providing this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Bye, Baby follows two childhood best friends tied together by a terrible secret. While their lives follow different paths, their past keeps them tied together whether they like it or not. When Cassie’s baby goes missing from her blowout 35th birthday party, Billie is there to comfort her. But who is at fault and can they trust each other? Will their dark past come back to haunt them? As a micro influencer, Cassie flaunts her lavish lifestyle all over Instagram and I think Carola does a great job of tying in the dangers of social media to this story. Bye, Baby felt less thriller and more drama/suspense, and I really liked the ending more than I was expecting compared to the beginning and middle. Fans of Tell Me Lies and Can’t Look Away (my favorite of her novels) will enjoy this. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

Cassie and Billie are very close friends that would do anything for one another. Unfortunately, as some childhood friendships do, they grow apart as Cassie starts a family. Billie now left by herself, portrays some very irrational behavior.

After Cassie’s baby is taken, the book takes us back and we are filled in on all of the drama that led up to that. Let’s just say jealousy is wild! This story was filled with suspense and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley prior to the release date. My review is of my own opinion.

I absolutely loved this book. From the very first page it had me hooked! I loved reading about the evolving relationship of childhood friends to adults. Each one choosing their own paths and how that can bring people closer or push them apart. This was my first book by this author but I will most definitely be reading her next book! The drama between new friends and old was relatable and felt like you were right there with them. I enjoyed the intertwining the concept of social media influencers and how that translates real life versus a curated image someone chooses to show. I felt for each character at one point or another and could relate to the feelings on either side, which is not always the case in dual POV books. Neither character was perfect, they both had flaws, but in the end, both just wanted acceptance and to feel valued.