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ClareR (5911 KP) rated Baby in Books

Oct 24, 2019

Baby

Annaleese Jochems | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, Thriller

7.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

A fascinating book with truly unpleasant characters!

Baby by Annaleese Jochems really intrigued me when I read the synopsis. I wasn’t under any illusions that this would be an odd read. I mean, 21 year old Cynthia runs off with her newly divorced fitness-instructor (Anahera), steals all,of her dads money from his bank account, and uses the money to buy a boat, Baby. And she takes her pug, Snot-head, along too. She thinks that she and Anahera will fall in love and live happily ever after. I don’t know whether Anahera knows this, at least not at first.

Cynthia is really not a nice person. ‘Vacuous’ would be a good word to describe her, as would ‘immature’ and ‘vindictive’. She’s shallow, and even around such natural beauty whilst on the boat, she is obsessed with social media and reality TV. Oh, and the way she looks. She thinks about what she looks like a lot, but doesn’t expect to have to do anything about it: she’s incredibly lazy, and expects Anahera to do everything for her.

Her reaction to a terrible accident involving a young boy sealed the deal for me: Cynthia thinks of no one but herself.

This all sounds really negative, as though I’m not going to like it, doesn’t it. I’ve left writing my review for a week or two, because I needed to think about it. I couldn’t actually get this book out of my head. It made me feel supremely uncomfortable whilst reading it, and I could feel myself wincing, metaphorically hiding my face behind my hands when I thought about it afterwards. But do you know what, I think I actually liked it. To make characters so thoroughly unpleasant, but to make the reader want to carry on reading, takes quite some skill. I’ve told friends about it, said they should read it, because it does say something about the world we live in and those who inhabit it. And honestly, it’s not all good.
So read this book. I’ve no doubt you’ll be wanting to throttle Cynthia as well!