Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Mary Kubica is kind of my everything right now. I love psychological thrillers, and when you pair them with fascinating female characters, I'm jumping up and down for joy. 
 Pretty Baby is Kubica's second book, and her sophomore novel is even better than its predecessor, The Good Girl. That's saying a lot because I loved The Good Girl like whoa. 
 Kubica's signature is a split, non-linear narrative, and I love it. Some of the story is told from Heidi's perspective and some from Chris's and tells the story of Heidi meeting Willow and bringing her home. Then we get Willow's story, told after the crisis point of the narrative, almost like an epilogue interspersed throughout the book. 
 Kubica plays in negative space-she never reveals the crux of the mystery, the black moment, the big reveal-all while sketching out the events that come before and after it. With Heidi and Chris, we live the story real time. With Willow we know something happened, but not what, and glean clues from her narrative, too. It's a remarkably tricky thing to pull off and Kubica does it brilliantly. 
 The other thing I love about Kubica is she subverts the "female as victim" mystery trope. Willow, despite her youth, despite her situation, despite the fact that she has been victimized, is a character who maintains her agency. We are never sure if she's a hero or a villain or something more complex in-between 
 I do feel compelled to warn readers that this book deals with child abuse, sometimes graphically, and if that's a trigger for you, you may want to steer clear. 
 I love a thriller that makes me think, makes me question the narrator and isn't just about who buried the body in the woods. Pretty Baby is all those things, and combined with exquisite writing and an ending that comes together beautifully it was an A read for me. 
 - Elyse