Sadie

by Courtney Summers

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.

Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep you riveted until the last page.

• ISBN10: 1250105714
• ISBN13: 9781250105714
• Publish Date: 1 October 2018 (first published 4 September 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 5 April 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leigha]

Sadie goes on a quest to avenge her sister’s murder, while true crime podcaster West McCray goes on a quest to find Sadie.

Sadie is what I expected Gone Girl to be – a masterpiece mystery thriller. It kept me on the edge of my seat in anticipation and dread. Told from two different perspectives and timelines, it follows the journey of nineteen-year-old Sadie as she struggles to find her sister’s killer. Sadie is not your typical heroine. She’s a deeply unhappy person barely able to deal with the guilt, grief, and anger she feels at the death of her sister. Her drive to uncover her sister’s killer is heartbreaking. She is fearless and yet fearful; afraid and yet brave.

Usually competing timelines drive me crazy, but this book did a phenomenal job balancing all the pieces together through the use of the podcast format. The format also worked well to construct unreliable narrators. We get to see the same version of events told from different perspectives as West McCray follows Sadie’s trail. The audio book nailed the podcast. It felt like I was listening to real podcast about a real missing girl. The voice actor for Sadie was marvelous too.

While some say this book has an open-ending, I would disagree. The book has an appropriate ending. It was like a jigsaw puzzle missing a few pieces. It was also not an easy book to read. This was so visceral, so real, and so raw. It grips you from the moment you start it till the moment you finish.

tl;dr A phenomenal listening experience with an engaging mystery and complex characters.

[Stephanie]

I'm so glad I decided to listen to this audiobook, because it was great! If you're going to read this, I highly suggest listening to the audiobook because this book was meant to be listened to.

[Laurie]

3/5 for the story, 5 for the audiobook. Makes it 4.

[lauriesbookshelf]

3/5 for the story, 5 for the audiobook. Makes it 4.

[kalventure]

✨ Sadie made my list of favorite reads in 2019!

"You aren't supposed to answer violence with more violence but sometimes I think violence is the only answer."

[Jo]

Trigger Warning: This book features child murder, child abuse/paedophilia, child neglect, attempted sexual assault, alcoholism and drug addiction.

When I read about Sadie by Courtney Summers for the first time, I really liked the sound of it. A girl who goes missing, looking for her little sister's murderer, and the podcast TV host who is trying to find her. But the blurb only gives us so much. There's so much more going on with this story. It's horrifying and unbelievably heartbreaking, but an absolutely incredible story.

It's October. Radio host West McCray gets a phone call from Mary Beth Foster. She tells him that her surrogate granddaughter, Sadie, has gone missing. A year ago to the day, Sadie's little sister, Mattie's body was found: she had been murdered. West remembers hearing about it on the radio in a small town he had been featuring on his show. He dismissed it. Sadie went missing four months ago, in June. Three months ago, an abandoned car was found with her belongings, but no clues as to her whereabouts. The police investigation has stalled. Mary Beth wants West McCray's help in trying to find Sadie.
It's June. Sadie has bought a car, and is going on the most messed up road trip. Nine months ago, her 13-year-old sister Mattie was murdered. Mattie was Sadie's whole world, and she's barely been able to cope since. She thinks she knows who did it - someone from their past - and she's going to find him. And she's going to make him pay.

>'I'm going to kill a man.
I'm going to steal the light from his eyes. I want to watch it go out. You aren't supposed to answer violence with more violence but sometmes I think violence is the only answer. It's no less than he dud to Mattie, so it's no less than he deserves.' (p43)

Told in mostly alternating chapters of podcast episodes and Sadie's narrative, Sadie is an incredibly difficult book to read. Even before Mattie's murder, their lives weren't easy. Their mum, Claire, is an alcoholic and drug addict, who cared more about her next fix than her children. It's been pretty much Sadie, with help from Mary Beth, who has brought up Mattie, even more so since Claire left them four years ago. She had to drop out of high school in order to work just to keep themselves fed and a rood over their head, but even then they struggled. Having felt unloved by her mum, when Mattie came along, she became Sadie's world. Despite how Sadie feels and how she's been treated by Claire, so Mattie's life is a little better, she has always told her that their mum is sick, always talked their mum up to her. And Claire always favoured Mattie, and took her side in everything. Mattie worshipped the ground Claire walked on, Sadie just wanted Mattie to be happy. When Claire leaves without a word, Mattie is broken. Until there's a postcard from Claire that says she's in LA. Then all Mattie wants is to go find her. But that's not something they can or should do, so Sadie won't allow it. Then Mattie goes missing. Three days later her body is found. And the only thing that keeps Sadie going is finding who did it and killing them.

I loved the way the story was told. At first, I felt quite uncomfortable with the whole podcast thing. With his skills as an investigative journalist, West McCray could help to find Sadie. But for it all to be recorded and shared for entertainment? I like watching TV shows that are similar to the podcast, but they're always years, decades, after the disappearance or the murder, or whatever it is they're focusing on. Sadie's disappearance is current, she is missing right now, and it just felt wrong to me that they were using her story for entertainment - even though at the beginning, West couldn't want to do anything less. But as the story goes on, it's less about entertainment and more about telling Sadie's story. This is who Sadie is, this was her life, this girl who loved her little sister so much, this girl who has gone missing. As West says at the beginning, we hear about girls going missing all the time. It's just another missing girl. But we don't really know anything about them, and we don't think about them. With The Girls podcast, the listeners get to know Sadie, they get to know her background, her relationship with her sister, her mother, her grief when her sister died. They get to care about this missing girl. She's not just another missing girl, she's not just another statistic. She's a real person, and she needs to be found. And you can't help - the fictional listeners of this podcast, I'm sure, as well as the real readers of this book - think about all the other lost girls, lost people who who have disappeared without a trace. What's happened to them? What are they going through? Are they even alive? Sadie's fictional story shines a light on the real, unknown stories of the missing.

What I also found interesting about the podcast is that whatever's happened to Sadie has already happened. Mary Beth got in touch with West three months after the car was found, abandoned. Four months after Sadie went missing. All eight episodes of the podcast, the whole thing, is available to listen to now. The end of the podcast has been recorded already, at the very beginning. Whatever has happened, has happened: whatever happened to Sadie has happened; whether West managed to find Sadie or not, it's happened. This makes reading Sadie's narrative hard, especially as you get nearer the end. You know the whole way through that her car was found abandoned, with all her belongings. So what happened to her? Where is she now? What led to her abandoning her car and all she owned? These questions are flying through your head as you're reading Sadie's narrative, following on her journey that takes her from one person to another, trying to find the man who hurt her, the man she believes killed her little sister.

Having the story told this way - through Sadie's narrative and the podcast - we get to see and understand things we wouldn't have with just one or the other. Perspective is a funny thing. We see Sadie's interactions with people, then we see those same people tell West about those interactions. We, the reader, know what happened, and being inside Sadie's head, we know what she meant and how she was feeling, and all that was going on with her. The people West interviews have their own takes. They see Sadie so differently, or they remember things differently, or they outright lie. Their thoughts and feelings about her are so different from our - the readers' - own, because we're in her head, we have her POV narration, we know more than they do. That, in it's way, is it's own kind of heartbreaking. Not everyone sees Sadie, they see a girl who is trouble.

But it works the other way round, too. Sadie has her own perspective of people, things she thinks and believes about them, but through the podcast we learn a different story. There is one out of so many different characters that I hated - other than Mattie's murderer - for most of the story, until they get to use their voice on the podcast and tell their story. Mattie sees what she sees, she reacts how she reacts, and she has been influenced by others, leading to an idea about who someone is. And she never realises that she could be wrong. I get to find out I was wrong. But how different things could have been, had she only known?

I've barely scratched the surface, and I haven't really talked about what happens during Sadie's narration. That's because you really need to read it. Her story is as excruciating as it is chilling. It made me feel sick. And that's the beauty of Summers' writing; she gives you the smallest details, and allows you to paint your own picture. There's know graphic or gratuitous descriptions of horrific things. She gives you just enough to let you know what happened, or what's been discovered, and that really is all you need. Because you know. You don't need to "see", you just need to know. And knowing is more than enough to terrify, disgust and break your heart.

I found myself feeling genuinely terrified for Sadie the closer the story got to the end. As I said earlier, what's happened has happened. There's no hiding from that. But I don't think I want to know, I kept thinking. The sense of dread I felt just got worse and worse, and I kept putting the book down, because I just couldn't. But even with the podcast, you have no idea what is actually going to happen until it's right upon you. So the fear and the dread were real, and I just really, really struggled the closer and closer I got to the end, the closer and closer Sadie got to finding her sister's murderer.

Before I start to wrap this up, there are two other things I want to talk about. Sadie had a stutter. A bad one, that affected almost every word she spoke, unless she was alone. This affected the way people saw her, and how she saw herself. People either thought she was drunk or stupid, or they felt sorry for her and pitied her. Her stutter isn't necessarily important to the overall story, but it was important to the person that was Sadie, how she moved through the world, how she tried to make herself heard and understood, how she navigated a world that treated her differently because of it. I myself have a stutter, and while it's nowhere near as bad as Sadie's, and so hasn't ever effected how I'm treated or how I feel about myself, I use some of the tricks Sadie uses herself - like, when I can't get past a certain word, I think of another way of saying what I want to say, using different words altogether, to actually get the words out. It felt very realistic to me, and very well done, but I'd also suggest reading reviews by people with more severe stutters.

Summers did something in Sadie that I have only ever seen maybe once or twice before. She goes against the white default. Whenever a new character is introduced, Sadie and West always mention their skin colour - including white characters. Normally, a white character being white isn't mentioned, because it is expected, it is the default. People of colour's skin colour or race is always mentioned, but white people you know by their hair or eye colour, or you know simply because you're not told otherwise. But in Sadie, every single character's skin colour is mentioned, which is just awesome. In this book, white isn't the default.

But back to the story now. The ending was unbelievable, but it was, I think, also the best ending. If it had ended any other way, I don't think it would have worked as well. But it hit me like a punch in the gut. Sadie is outstanding, a masterpiece, absolutely stunning, and it deserves to win all the awards. And I want a TV show. That has to happen. I wasn't ok when I finished Sadie. I'm still not ok. It broke me, and I honestly don't know how I'm ever going to get over this book. How I'm ever going to get over what happened to Mattie, what happened to Sadie, or that ending. This book left me in a complete mess, but in the best possible way.

I can't recommend this book enough. I implore you to read it, because it's so bloody important. Sadie might be a fictional character, but their are girls just like her, girls who have experienced what she has, girls who are missing, and it's for them that we should read this story and face the realities of what could be their lives.

[chymerra]

I had seen reviews for Sadie on various blogs that I follow. All them good. I thought to myself “This book can’t be THAT good.” I had gotten Sadie as an ARC a few months back but due to school vacation, I fell behind on my reviews. So I went into reading this book with a fair amount of skepticism. Well, let me take back everything I thought to myself. Sadie was amazing. There are very few books that I will get completely immersed in and Sadie was one.

I loved the way it was written. It was split between being told as a podcast and from Sadie’s POV. Not only did I get to see the effect of Sadie’s leaving had on people. But I also got to read about what Sadie was thinking when she started off on her journey to find Keith.

I loved how the author dangled parts of the plotline. Instead of giving everything all at once, she broke things up into little pieces. You know that Mattie, Sadie’s younger sister, was killed. You know that Sadie didn’t deal with it well. It’s the underneath that the author takes her time revealing. It was drawn out. Sadie would reveal something then it would switch to McCray as he is doing this podcast. What was revealed was explained after the fact, by the people affected. It was interesting because not everything was told to McCray.

McCray was trying to do good with his podcast but it seemed like he was always 3 steps behind Sadie. At one point, I got mad because he kept running into dead ends. But, Sadie did make it easy for him to follow her. She left clues. I could see McCray getting more and more involved in this case the more time he spent on it. He went from an impersonal radio host to a human being trying his best to find a missing girl. It was interesting to see that transformation.

I should have seen what Keith did to Sadie coming. It wasn’t addressed until after Sadie found those pictures. Then, I understood while she was doing this for Mattie, she was also doing it for herself and the other girls that Keith victimized. If Keith had stayed away, Sadie would have gone on with her life, caring for Mattie. But he came back and bad things happened. That broke Sadie. So yes, I wasn’t surprised that she decided to go after him.

I was angry with Sadie’s mother. She was the catalyst for everything. Either she didn’t know or she turned a blind eye to what was going on. But, when he dared to attempt something on Mattie, she threw him out. Even with Mattie dead and Sadie gone, her mother mourned only for Mattie. I don’t think she had it in her to love Sadie (even though she said she did). May Beth, the surrogate grandmother, shed more tears for Sadie than her own mother. That showed how empty Sadie’s life was.

I couldn’t believe the ending. I tried to flip to the next page because I refused to believe that the author ended it that way. I might have shouted “Seriously!!!” Talking about frustrating. But genius of the author. Because it made you think. And, unfortunately, it ended as it would have in real life. With more questions than answers.

What I liked about Sadie:

A) Relatable characters

B) How it was written

C) Was able to get completely immersed in it.

What I disliked about Sadie:

A) Keith

B) Sadie’s mother

C) The ending

I gave Sadie a 4.5-star rating. I was completely immersed in this book from page 1. This was a fantastic book to read. The only downside to it was the ending. Other than that, a great book to read.

I gave Sadie an Older Teen rating. There are sex and sexual references. There is language. There is violence. I would recommend that no one under the age of 16 read this book.

I would reread Sadie. I would also recommend this book to family and friends.

I would like to thank St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Sadie

All opinions stated in this review of Sadie are mine.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

Well, this was quite an enjoyable ride! Let me be clear- this is a tough one to read, in the sense that wow, life is unfair. But, that's the same reason I liked it so much- it was brutally, unflinchingly real. Because sometimes, life deals you a shitty hand, and it just doesn't quit. Let us talk about the things I enjoyed about the book, shall we?

The Things I Enjoyed:

• •Sadie tackles some very dark, very disturbing topics, but handles them well. Like I said, life wasn't easy, fun, or fair for Sadie or her sister Maddie. And that is putting it mildly. While it's horrifying to read about as the secrets keep unfurling, it also feels eerily real. The author does a great job with the atmosphere of the book, I was able to feel the desperation of the situation.



• •Podcast format is genius. I adore this concept so, so much. I wasn't sure if I would, to be honest- I am not really a podcast listener myself- but it was the perfect idea for this book. It's such a great way for the reader to see outside of just one or two viewpoints, and gives a fuller, clearer picture of the situation from all angles. Plus, it's just fun to read, let's be real. (P.S. You can actually listen to the podcast, how is this not the coolest freaking thing ever?)



• •Grim, but hopeful. Don't misunderstand, it's still mostly grim. But there's little lights that shine through- from a passing altruist, to a surrogate grandmother who cares for the girls when no one else seems to, it gives that feeling that maybe there are still good guys out there. That all hope isn't totally lost (even when it seems like it pretty much is).



• •Sadie's love for Mattie is really powerful. I won't sugarcoat it, Mattie's death is very hard to digest. Not only was she so very loved by Sadie, she was just a young girl who should never, ever have been harmed. No person should, obviously, but it seems like more of a gut-punch when it's a child, no? As difficult as it was to read about, it was also quite beautiful.



• •It's compulsively readable. I think because the format made for a fast-paced reading experience, and the fact that it was just so unputdownable, I basically had to finish the book as quickly as possible. Because I wanted to know all the things!

The Things I Wasn't As Fond Of:

• •The ending is rather open.And by "rather open" I mean holy freaking openness. A non-ending, even. And while it did work for the story in a way... it just is personally frustrating. Some people are good with more open endings, but I am not those people. So this is probably more of a personal preference, but something to be aware of.



• •I did guess quite a few of the plot points early on. But that might just be because I am awesome, who can tell?

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a realistically dark and gritty mystery, you've found it in Sadie. Extra points for the fabulous format, sisterly bond, and dash of hope.

[girlinthepages]

I literally just finished Sadie about ten minutes before writing this review, and all I can say is...damn. What did I just read? My mind is reeling from the ending and the unsettling nature of the story and the desperation that pervaded the lives of all of the characters...It's hard to find a book that not only offers something new in terms of plot but also in terms of format, and Sadie does both. Unafraid to tackle terrible, disturbing circumstances, the narrative is brought to life not only by chapters in Sadie's point of view, but by a mixed media format that breaks up the chapters with a true-crime podcast transcript, as West McCray follows Sadie's case in a narrative that runs parallel to her own. Sadie was a truly unique reading experience and one that I'm going to be thinking about long, long after the day I finished the novel.

If you're a fan of true crime podcasts at all, you'll know there's a formula to so many of them- a cold case, usually set in a small town, a big-city journalist who somehow trips across the story, who then becomes emotionally invested and hopes to crack the case (or at least breathe new life into it) and takes listeners on the journey with them. Sadie captures the tone and feel of these true crime podcasts perfectly, and Summers does an amazing job of balancing the podcast transcripts with the actual first person POV narratives from Sadie herself. Wednesday Books is even putting out episodes of the podcast from the book that you can listen to every week leading up to the book's release, and I listened to the first one and it's so well done- if you didn't know better, you'd definitely liken it to Serial or Up and Vanished.

Aside from the podcast element (which you can obviously tell I'm very excited about), Sadie was a story that was so raw, so unsettling, that it was hard to read, and yet at the same time I was loathe to put it down. I flew through it obsessively, knowing it was fiction, but feeling like it was a cold case that really existed, that the events really mattered and that West could really possibly help and/or save Sadie. And Sadie...I was equal parts in awe and furious with her, she possessed such a rawness and recklessness and desperation that I've never seen in a YA protagonist, and it was hard to be inside her head more often than not. Summers explores a kind of desolation that so many readers will not be familiar with- abuse and addiction and, over and over again, what it's like to be really and truly hungry, that the story will have you suffocating in a life that may not be real, but that will feel all too vivid by the time you are done reading.

While I initially was hesitant with how much I would enjoy Sadie when I first started reading it, I quickly became consumed, only to be left reeling at the end. I understand WHY the author chose the ending she did, and it's honestly pretty in line with where a lot of True Crime podcasts end, but there's just so many loose ends that I'd like to see wrapped up, especially for the emotional investment I ended up putting in, even in such a short amount of time (the book is a hair over 300 pages). I'm crossing my fingers that perhaps the podcast that's being put out may extend past the events of the book, since Sadie seems to firmly be a standalone novel.

Overall: Sadie is unlike any other YA novel I've read, with the mixed media format, the grimy setting, and the unsettling narrative. However, I was so addicted to the format that I can only hope true crime podcast inspired stories become a new sub genre in YA!This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[kimbacaffeinate]

Caffeinated Reasons to Grab Sadie

• The story format includes podcasts, narratives from an investigative journalist and pov's from Sadie. The timeline weaves between Sadie's and West's bringing the past and present together. It built suspense and filled in blanks as the story unfolded allowing the reader to grasp what was happening before West.



• Journalist West McCray hears a story about a murdered young girl and soon learns about her missing sister.



• The girls' story is a dark and sadly it could have been ripped from today's headlines. They were raised in a trailer park on the outskirts of a small economically depressed town by their junkie mother and her long string of boyfriends. When their Mother abandons them Sadie takes over the care of her thirteen-year-old sister until Mattie goes missing and later discovered dead. Destroyed, Mattie's death became the catalyst for Sadie's journey.



• The story that unfolds is dark, twisted and suspenseful. As I read my palms began to sweat and Summers pulled at my heartstrings. We travel with Sadie and learn her story, but we also travel with West as he investigates and travels the path Sadie took. These threads finally merge and we learn as West does.



• Gritty and addictive Summers made me experience all of Sadie's emotions, fears and desires. I swore, I got angry, I even wept. The subject matter wasn't easy, but the story deserved to be told and I read on needing to know its outcome.



• Sadie is a powerful, complex character who is both broken and fearless. At the tender age of nineteen she has lived a hard life and carries heavy burdens regarding Mattie. She sets off to right a wrong and facedown a monster. Her journey takes her to some seedy places, offers her a glimpse at a life she's only dreamed of and allows her to see her own reflection mirrored by another. Along the way, Sadie makes a difference for others and perhaps finds a little peace for herself.



• Summers does justice to their story. The ending isn't wrapped up in a neat little bow, but it is one that will stay with you long after you've closed the book.

This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer