If not for a really cool APP called SCRIBD I wouldn’t have been able to fit Sadie into my October reading. For years I thought I wouldn’t like audiobooks. I’m a visual learner, so I didn’t think I would be able to retain info from listening to a book. I was wrong. My new-to-me car has Bluetooth (I was driving a 2006 Grand Caravan for a looooong time, and it ain’t got no Bluetooth that’s for sure). Anytime I was in the car without my family, I listened to Sadie. I also wore headphones and listened while cooking supper, cleaning, folding laundry. It has been honestly amazing. I’m officially addicted to audiobooks!

Title: Sadie

Author: Courtney Summers

Publisher: MacMillan Audio

Date of Publication: Sept 4, 2018

Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction, Mystery

 

“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 meagre 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.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40820097-sadie

Sadie, written by Canadian author Courtney Summers, takes place in a fictional “small town” called Cold Creek, Colorado.

“I live in a place that’s only good for leaving.”

Podcast journalist, West, is searching for a missing girl named Sadie, a nineteen-year-old who disappeared after her thirteen-year-old sister Mattie was murdered. Sadie has been raising Mattie pretty much on her own since their mother, an addict, abandoned them.

“She’s dead,” I whisper and I don’t know why this is the thing I choose to say out loud because it hurts to say it, to feel the truth of those words pass my lips, to have them be real in this world. But She’s dead is the reason I’m still alive.
She’s dead is the reason I’m going to kill a man.

This is a creative dual-perspective novel told from Sadie and West, the host of a Podcast called “The Girls”. Sadie is about an unbreakable bond between two sisters. I have a younger sister, and I admire Sadie for her strength and courage. Their story broke my heart many times.

The audiobook has a full cast of characters, a different voice for each person, which helped differentiate their personalities. If I read the book I feel like the characters would feel one-dimensional.

Flipping between Sadie and the podcast perspective wasn’t confusing at all. I had a hard time putting this down even though the pacing did have many slow moments. After arriving at my destination I would remain in my parked car, listening to Sadie, and wishing I didn’t have to turn it off. I NEEDED to know if she was going to catch Mattie’s killer.

This is a great read for those who like mystery novels, but be aware of many trigger warnings: parental abandonment, abuse (physical, mental, sexual), murder, and physical assault.

Some of the sentences had a strange structure and were hard to comprehend. For example:

“The screen door on the trailer is rusted out, sparks a whine into all our surrounding Nowhere That Matters, but if you need a visual, picture a place far, far less than suburbia and then imagine me, a few more rungs down that ladder living in a trailer rented from Fed-Me-Blueberries May Beth for as long as I’ve been alive.”

There was also quite a few times when the podcast would repeat exactly what Sadie had already said from her perspective. This made me feel like it was assumed the reader wouldn’t remember the detail and need the repetition. I don’t like it when books make the reader feel dumb. Sadie’s stutter was mentioned over, and over, and over. If you don’t like ambiguous endings, then this may not be the book for you.

Sadie is a heart-wrenching story about a sister clawing for the strength and courage to find her sister’s killer. It will leave you knowing what it feels like to put your own life at risk in order to achieve justice for someone you love more than you love yourself.

“Courtney Summers was born in Belleville, Ontario, 1986. At age 14, she dropped out of high school. At age 18, she wrote her first novel. Cracked Up to Be was published in 2008, when she was 22 and went on to win the 2009 CYBIL award in YA fiction. Since then, she’s published four more critically acclaimed books: Some Girls Are, Fall for Anything, This is Not a Test and All the Rage, as well as an e-novella, Please Remain Calm which is a sequel to This is Not a Test. Her new novel, Sadie, is available now wherever books are sold. #findsadie
In 2016, Courtney was named one of Flare Magazine’s 60 under 30″

http://courtneysummers.ca/