Sadie by Courtney Summers –320 pages
Book Blurb:
A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial-like podcast following the clues she’s left behind. Sadie hasn’t had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she’s been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie’s entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him.
When West McCray—a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America—overhears Sadie’s story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie’s journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it’s too late.
My Review: 4.5 stars
Sadie is a book that took a cue from the ultra-popular podcast Serial. FYI, if you haven’t listened to a podcast yet, Serial is the place to start. Sadie is split between detailed transcriptions of a podcast called The Girls and Sadie’s own narrative as she seeks answers and revenge for her sister’s murder. Thus the story is told in two ways. One is from West McCray’s podcast of The Girls who is interviewing and investigating on air. The other is through Sadie as we follow her step-by-step journey driving cross-country to discover what happened to her sister. As she drives, she learns more and more through the podcasts she’s listening to.
The book is definitely dark and contains many triggers like abuse (both emotional and physical), addiction, pedophilia and murder. That being said, nothing was unnecessarily gruesome or brutal. Many stories with murder as the focal point propel forward because of shock, but the real and raw emotion of the story is what really makes this book a page turner. My heart went out to Sadie. As hard as some pages were to read, I needed to keep going if only to honor her and Mattie’s story.
Summer’s writing is spot on and her ability to make the podcast and Sadie’s journey intersect was very well crafted. I received a copy of this at BEA and it was getting loads of publicity. Often times the overly hyped books end up disappointing me, but this one lived up to its reputation. I will definitely back track and read some of this author’s earlier works. Note that this book is categorized as YA (Young Adult).
The ending is definitely something I can see some readers loving and others being frustrated with. It’s realistic but leaves a lot to the imagination. Either way, I completely understand the reasoning behind it.
Quotes I liked:
“Sometimes I don’t know what I miss more; everything I’ve lost or everything I never had.”
– “I realized pretty early on that the who didn’t really matter so much. That anybody who listens to me, I end up loving them just a little.”
-“She’s dead is the reason I’m still alive. She’s dead is the reason I’m going to kill a man.”
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