Sadie by Courtney Summers

Sadie 

• Author: Courtney Summers
• Published: September 4th, 2018
• Publisher: Wednesday Book
• Rating: 5/5

goodreads | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

Goodreads synopsis 

A missing girl on a journey of revenge. A Serial―like podcast following the clues she’s left behind. And an ending you won’t be able to stop talking about.

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.

My thoughts

I read this book about 2 weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it.  This is one of those books that you hear people talk about and makes you pick it up to see what is all about and I’m glad I did, I just couldn’t put this book down and when someone said if you like the book you should pick up the audiobook as well I was right on it and oh my gosh were they right!

And it begins, as so many stories do, with a dead girl.

This story is about 19 year old Sadie and her search for the man she thinks murdered her sister Mattie.  The story is told in alternating POV’s by Sadie and by West McCray a radio personality.

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 sometimes I think violence is the only answer.

This books is so incredibly well written, Sadie grew up poor without a father and an drug addict mother, she had to grow up fast and take care of herself and also her little sister Mattie.  She endures abuse from her mother’s boyfriends, growing up she really had it rough.

This book is so well done, some parts were harder than others to get thru and my heart kept on breaking for Sadie and worrying about how this whole story was going to end.  I will also add the trigger warning for abuse, abandonment, pedophile, physical and verbal abuse.

I really recommend the audiobook, it takes the story to a higher level will a full cast.  The podcast was really interesting and I think that came across the reader perfectly.

In our last episode, I introduced you to the two girls at the center of this podcast, Mattie Southern and Sadie Hunter. Mattie was murdered, her body left just outside her hometown of Cold Creek, Colorado. Sadie is missing, her car found, abandoned, thousands of miles away, with all her personal belongings still inside it. The girls’ surrogate grandmother, May Beth Foster, has enlisted my help in finding Sadie and bringing her home.

For those of you just tuning in, this is a serialized podcast, so if you haven’t listened to our first episode, you should do that now. We have more story than time to tell it – but I suppose that’s true for all of us.

I will also add this book kind of reminded me of The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis who is one of my favorite authors, the only difference between The female of the Species and Sadie is Sadie is definitely darker or at least it was for me.

Overall, even thought this is a darker and heartbreaking story with lost of trigger warnings I recommend it to everyone, I will be picking up more of Courtney Summer’s work.