Wednesday 8th September 2021 – Taking Baby For a Walk

 Trigger warning: kidnapping, non-graphic child abuse. 

Hello everyone. As you've probably noticed, I've run out of steam for blog ideas. But, I've also been busy working, which has been very exciting, and I'm already enjoying it lots!

Anyway, today I'm doing another book review for Odyssey Books. This one is Taking Baby For a Walk by Kathryn Gossow. 

This one was a tough read. I had to keep coming back to it because I was finding it so difficult to keep a positive mindset for the protagonist, Bree-Anna. 

Bree-Anna is five years old and lives with her older brother, Declan, and their Mum, Amber. There is no father to be seen, and Amber has a reputation for sleeping around with men. Bree-Anna tries to wake up her mum to get to her friend, Rachel's, birthday party, but finds an 'ogre' in bed with her mum. This scares her. She doesn't like the ogre and wishes he would stay away. As her mother is asleep, and her brother Declan won't tell her when Rachel's birthday party is, Bree-Anna decides to take matters into her own hands. 

She grabs Baby, her doll who speaks to her by Magic, her pushchair, and Rachel's birthday present, and sets off for Rachel's house. 

Jake is another character whose life we follow. He has a five-year-old daughter, Alannah-Lily, or La-Li, as he likes to call her. However, Jake struggles to keep jobs, has no money, and wishes his ex-wife would take him back. He's not a good father; he fails to follow any instructions his ex-wife, Carla, gives him when it comes to looking after La-Li. He's stuck in the past. So much so that when he sees Bree-Anna get into a car with a stranger, he doesn't think about it again until he's asked to go into the police station for questioning. 

Eloise is the final character whose life we follow. She is friend's with Amber, they went to school together, and now she works for Amber as a cleaner part-time. The rest of the time she works as a barmaid at a pub where she's having an affair with the owner. Eloise is desperate to get out of Stinky Gully, the place where the story is set, and get into art school. Her father's memory is failing him, and her brother has used up her money one too many times for drugs. 

Bree-Anna is picked up from her walk by a man driving a froggy-green car. He claims he can take her to Rachel's birthday party, and that he knows Bree-Anna's mum. Only one of those is true. 

I remember being taught from a very young age to never get into a car with a stranger. I think this is something everyone's taught in their lifetime. But for Bree-Anna, who is only five, desperate to get to Rachel's party, and who meets a man who knows her mother, it makes sense to get into his ugly car. 

Bree-Anna quickly realises that Mr Randall, the man who kidnaps her, is not taking her to Rachel's birthday party. Instead, he takes her to where he's living and says that her mother will be on her way to come get her. Assuaged by this, Bree-Anna waits for her mother, convinced she knows where Bree-Anna is. 

Over time, Bree-Anna becomes more scared. Her mum hasn't come to pick her up, and Mr Randall isn't a nice man. He becomes more aggressive. He hurts physically, treats her terribly, and doesn't let her go, all because he fancies Bree-Anna's mum. Bree-Anna does what she can to survive; she does what Mr Randall tells her to do, she phones her mum's mobile phone from Mr Randall's landline, and she tried her hardest to be brave. 

Taking Baby For a Walk is about reaching inside of yourself and finding the courage that you thought had disappeared ages ago. It's about being mentally strong, knowing what's right and what's wrong, following your gut instinct, and fighting for a better life. 

In the end, though Bree-Anna spends a lot of the book calling herself a 'dumb-dumb' thanks to her brother's teasing, she knows she must do something to get out of Mr Randall's house and back home to her mother. Mr Randall had been threatening to let Bree-Anna die of thirst, and she knew her mother wasn't coming to get her. She knew she had to do something. 

Taking Baby For a Walk is an excellent thriller. With believable characters who you wish could do better, and with suspense well-delivered throughout the book thanks to the multiple narrators, it's hard not to see it through until the end. If you're up for a challenge, think you could face a little bit of darkness in a book, then read it! Gossow has done an excellent job at creating a story that makes you feel uncomfortable with how realistic it is. 

Thank you to Odyssey Books for letting me read this. As always, it's been a pleasure.