Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica- 380 pages
Book Blurb:
She sees the teenage girl on the train platform, standing in the pouring rain, clutching an infant in her arms. She boards a train and is whisked away. But she can’t get the girl out of her head…
Heidi Wood has always been a charitable woman: she works for a nonprofit, takes in stray cats. Still, her husband and daughter are horrified when Heidi returns home one day with a young woman named Willow and her four-month-old baby in tow. Disheveled and apparently homeless, this girl could be a criminal—or worse. But despite her family’s objections, Heidi invites Willow and the baby to take refuge in their home. Heidi spends the next few days helping Willow get back on her feet, but as clues into Willow’s past begin to surface, Heidi is forced to decide how far she’s willing to go to help a stranger. What starts as an act of kindness quickly spirals into a story far more twisted than anyone could have anticipated.
My Review: 4 stars
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Pretty Baby is a fast paced psychological thriller that is perfect for those who need to get sucked into a story right away. Kubica, author of The Good Girl, again places this story in Chicago and does a wonderful job depicting the city, its weather and its mood.
Writing in the first person for three of the main characters was a good device to let the mystery unfold although I missed hearing more from Zoe, the daughter. I think she had a story to tell (always cold, never ate) and my imagination ran wild as to what was really going on when she locked herself in her room.
I did find a bit of the writing in need of an editor due the repetitive nature of certain description that were repeated continually for example: aquiline nose, harbor blue towels (sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes without) and ochre bruise.
Overall, this is a good read and really makes you realize how important it is to look at people. Not just the homeless, the lost, the weak, but also those who may be in a downward spiral of mental illness.
Quotes I liked:
But knowing it in my mind and in my heart were two very different things.
We’re like the wheels of a car: in sync but also independent.
We don’t have much, but at least we have each other. And then one day, we didn’t even have that much.
