Trigger Warnings: Sexual abuse (especially towards children), underage drinking, drug and weapon use, murder.

5 stars.

I can without a doubt say that Sadie is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Perhaps THE best. In this book, everything from the complex characters to the gripping plot was perfectly written. But before I delve into a very (and I mean VERY) passionate review, I’ll give a quick summary for those who are not familiar with the book.

This novel follows Sadie, a nineteen year old runaway, as she tracks down who she believes to be the murderer of her sister, Mattie, who was everything to her... practically the air she breathed.

At the same time, reporter West McCray is scrambling to find the missing girl as he records a series of serial-like podcasts centered around Sadie’s disappearance.

There are so many things I loved about this book.

For starters, Sadie. Now, it’s clear to see Sadie has a lot of problems. Her neglectful mother is nowhere to be seen, the person who might be her father is guilty of an unspeakable crime, and her beloved sister was just brutally slaughtered. How could things get any worse for this poor girl?

You may think that Sadie’s rough life might have morphed her into a somewhat crazy person. And in a way, you’re right. In this book, Sadie walked around with a switch blade, interacted with dangerous people, and basically went out on a suicide mission to avenge her sister’s death. But all these details really contributed to the complexity of Sadie’s character. She was a determined, headstrong individual who went through the ugliest parts of the world but came out alive. I absolutely loved her.

In addition to this, I liked the originality of this book. It wasn’t just a murder story... I mean, we’ve all seen that before. There were so many details that made this novel stand out. For instance, Sadie’s stutter. Throughout the book, Sadie was constantly underestimated because of her stutter. She was laughed at and pushed around. But whenever this happened. Sadie fought her attacker and showed them the kind of person she really was: strong, fearless, and unafraid.

For all these reasons and more, Sadie was a fantastic read. I encourage you to get your hands on this book once it hits the market. You won’t regret it!

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Courtney Summers for giving me an opportunity to read this novel!

I saw this book in a buzzed-books article and was immediately intrigued. This novel is told in two parts: first through the podcast transcript for a new Serial-like show called The Girls. The second part is in the first person narration of Sadie, the missing girl who is at the heart of the mystery of The Girls Podcast. The two storylines are told about six months apart, and clues to what Sadie is doing and why she's doing it unfold through each storyline.

This book is both a revenge story and a story about how far we'll go for the people we love. Sadie was a fantastic protagonist. She felt real to me; not a nineteen year old with superhuman strength and will to accomplish what she needs to, but rather someone who is hurting and angry (with very good reason) and who has nothing left to lose.

I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this one. I loved the dual narrative structure, and once I started, I could not put it down. It is a really dark story and triggers abound, but Summers handles them with a deft hand. This was my first book by Summers, but it won't be my last.

This was the first book I read by this author, and I absolutely loved it. It was compelling, intense, and utterly enthralling. The writing was superbly executed and engaging. The very serious subject matter of sexual abuse addressed in this story was dealt with in a realistic manner with all the raw emotions associated with it.
Very highly recommended!

I've heard nothing but rave reviews from others and this book does not disappoint. This is a YA thriller perfect for the tail end of your summer read. The writing is great, allowing you to dive into the story as if it were your own, and the characters are phenomenal and relatable. This brings to YA a genre not often covered and Summers perfectly touched on the not-so-sunny-side of teens lives - a theme we don't often get to see.

This is a hard book to read. Snapshots of a rundown rural area where the majority of the people living their are stuck in cycles of poverty and addiction is a difficult place to spend time, made all the harder when a dead girl is the catalyst for the story.

The systematic sexual child abuse that runs throughout the book is horrifying, to the point that occasionally I wanted to stop reading the book. What kept me reading was a desire to know what happened to Sadie. And the little reveals of justice gave some brief sense of satisfaction but it’s never enough to balance the horror of the abuse.

I understand that these kinds of abuses and the way young girls are groomed by predators to stay quiet and afraid is a very real thing, but I wish that when we explored these stories we found more ways to show how to eradicate the culture that makes it possible. I suppose that mostly, this story made me sad.

To some degree the story shows the ways that dead girls become sensationalized. The podcast in the story tries to make a missing girl more than just a mystery and also a person, but it still feels like too little too late, what does that podcast and ultimately this book really accomplish?

Raw and real. The writing is beautiful and thought-provoking. The strength and resilience of Sadie will remain with me for a long time. I like the setup of the book in which we follow Sadie back in time as she runs away to try to track down her sister Maddie's murderer alternated with chapters of the transcript of a podcast of a journalist trying to find Sadie herself. I would highly recommend this book to young adult and adults . I received this book as an advanced reader's copy from NetGalley in July 2018.

Serial + The Girls, with a pinch of Vigilante = Sadie

** Trigger warning for violence against women and children, including rape. **

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. It’s no less than he did to Mattie, so it’s no less than he deserves.

I don’t expect it to bring her back. It won’t bring her back.

It’s not about finding peace. There will never be peace.

I’m not under any illusions about how little of me will be left after I do this one thing. But imagine having to live every day knowing the person who killed your sister is breathing the air she can’t, filling his lungs with it, tasting its sweetness. Imagine him knowing the steady weight of the earth under his feet while her body is buried six feet below it.

This is the furthest I’ve been from anything that I know.

###

My eyes burn, and tears slip down my cheeks and I can’t even imagine how pathetic I look. Girl with a busted face, torn-up arm, begging for the opportunity to save other girls. Why do I have to beg for that?

###

Nineteen-year-old Sadie Hunter has had a pretty effed up life. Born to a young, single mom with multiple addictions (alcohol, cocaine, heroin) and a rotating roster of enabling boyfriends, Sadie grew up in a trailer park in the small, struggling town of Cold Creek, Colorado. (Population: eight hundred.) She developed a stutter at a young age, but her mother Claire never sought treatment; consequently, Sadie was bullied, isolated, and shamed for it, for most of her life.

Claire’s own mother, Irene, died of breast cancer when Claire was only nineteen herself; Sadie’s striking physical resemblance to Irene was just one of many reasons why Claire had trouble bonding with her daughter. Younger sister Mattie Southern (she got the matrilineal surname; Sadie did not – telling, that) arrived six years later, and Sadie tried her best to be Mattie’s mother and father. When Claire ran out on her and Mattie, Sadie dropped out of high school to support her family. She was only sixteen.

After two years of limping along, with no small support from May Beth Foster – manager of the trailer park and their deceased grandmother’s best friend – Mattie disappeared. Her body was found three days later in an apple orchard several miles outside of town. Nine months later, Sadie too goes missing; her car is found thousands of miles away, in a town called Farfield. When the local police write Sadie off as just another runaway, May Beth reaches out to West McCray, journalist and host of the podcast ALWAYS OUT THERE, for help.

Told in the alternating perspectives of Sadie (as she tracks down her sister’s killer) and West (in the form of his investigative podcast, THE GIRLS, as he retraces Sadie’s steps, now three months cold), we embark on a SERIAL-type mystery that’s also a biting interrogation of rape culture, class, and misogyny.

I mean, I guess you could shelve SADIE under “mystery,” but it’s so much more than that. In a way, it’s a mystery within a mystery: who killed Mattie, and what happened to Sadie? Sadie already knows the answer to the former, and it’s revealed probably halfway into the story. The bigger question is what became of Sadie when she reached the end of her journey – and this is a blank we readers are left to fill in ourselves. In this way, the ending is a tease, but also a blessing: realistically, Sadie’s fate was likely not a happy one. And yet, by leaving things as she does, Summers allows us to hope, to dream, to retain our faith in a flawed young woman who wanted nothing than to save other girls like herself.

SADIE is also stark and uncompromising look at rape culture, much in the vein of ALL THE RAGE. Summers’s writing is at once beautiful and cutting; she dissects all manner of sexist tropes and stereotypes, from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl to the idea that men are only truly capable of grasping women’s humanity when they have a daughter of their own to care about and fear for and worry over. (Claire’s confrontation with West? Pure cathartic bliss.)

Sadie, Mattie, Claire, May Beth, Marlee – Summers has populated Sadie with a cast of complex, nuanced women characters. Sadie rather reminds me of a more realistic version of Alex Craft, the protagonist in Mindy McGinnis’s THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. (Let’s face it, we can’t all be cold and calculating feminist serial killers.) Her relationships with Mattie, Claire, and May Beth are fascinating in their messiness. I love how Summers challenges our assumptions by allowing various characters to offer their own versions of oft-told stories at the 11th hour, long after our own impressions of them have begun to harden.

If you’ve never read a Courtney Summers book, you owe it to yourself to correct that ASAP. My first ALL THE RAGE (amazing!), and with SADIE she’s fast becoming a favorite author of mine. I wouldn’t quite call SADIE a rape revenge story, but it’s a pretty fine distinction, and if you “enjoy” that subgenre as much as I, SADIE is a good choice on this front too.

When I first read a sample of the book I loved it! I was so excited to be able to read the entire book! Courtney Summers has become one of my new favorite authors. I can't wait to read more books from her!

A tough read as it deals with the vulnerability of children and when adults abuse. Sadie is on a mission to revenge the death of her younger sister Mattie. Told in the perspective of Sadie and a podcast producer whose creating a show to discover what happens to Sadie during her journey. Great read but be warned it’ll break your heart a bit.

Sadie is a girl who loses her whole world violently. This story follows her, in search of the truth. And justice. Told in parts pod cast and Sadie, this book does hook you. Its probably one of the best I've read so far.

I liked this book, but wasn’t crazy about the whole podcast thing. It was confusing for me at times. And I would’ve really liked to know what ultimately happened to Sadie. Overall though it was a good book and I’d definitely read this author again.

I picked this book up on a whim from net galley and what an incredible read it was! Families are incredibly cryptic creatures to understand and trying to delve into the reasons we do the things we do as parents and children is yet another depth to families. This book covers difficult situations from so many dynamics, written as if you were in the middle of podcast with alternating chapters from the point of our main character, Sadie. I was hooked from the first page and found it impossible to put this book down. This is one talented writer here! There is a depth to this story that I wasn't prepared for and it will leave you hanging on the edge of your seat until the very last page. Don't miss this one! Thank you #netgalley!

This was an amazing book about a Sadie's love for her sister, Mattie, and the lengths she'll go through to protect her sister and then, after Mattie is murdered, to get revenge upon the people who have hurt her.

Mattie was murdered in a violent and horrific way, and a few months later Sadie went missing and hasn't been heard from since. Sadie's story is told from two different perspectives: hers and West McCray's, a journalist from New York City who created a podcast about his search for Sadie. As the book goes on, the reader will learn more and more about Sadie and Mattie and the people who have hurt both of them. As Sadie seeks revenge for her sister, she puts herself and others in danger but nothing will stop her from getting what she wants.

This book blew my mind and I cannot wait to read more from Courtney Summers!!

What an incredible story. So powerful and emotional. This is the first book I read from this author, no one recommended and I didn't know about this book till I started seeing it everywhere on Facebook and Instagram. Lots of people got print ARCs (totally jealous btw) and I just needed to know what it was about. I was lucky to find it on NetGalley (eARC) and to be approved. I read what it was about and had to read it right away. I loved the way it was written, we get to hear the story from the radio station guy (West) who is trying to find Sadie and we also see Sadie's side. Sadie's side is months behind and when we read West's side we are in the present ( I believe) which is why it was a bit scary because you just wanted to know what happened. This story is sometimes difficult and might make the reader cry. Will definitely make you think and make you sad as well. This is not a happy, will make you laugh story, but it is actually filled with love. The love of a sister desperate to make things right and the love of a neighbor, a grandmotherly figure, who is desperate to find Sadie.
That ending was difficult, I even went back in the story to read again because I wanted to make sure I knew what happened to Sadie.
This one will stay with me for a while. Really great and will definitely recommend.
There are quite a bit of difficult topics in the story so be warned.

Books that are partly written in the form of a podcast are my new favorite thing (granted, I have only read two books that fit the bill, Sadie and Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber). If you’re not a fan of podcasts, the writing style may not be for you, but I love podcasts so, to have that format intertwined with normal narrative is refreshing. The podcast element allows you to see events unfold and watch pieces fall together through different perspectives but it is much different than books that simply alternate between multiple narrators.

Sadie has lived a rough life, to say the least, and now she’s on a mission to avenge her sister’s death. We venture through Colorado with Sadie in the present tense as she hunts the murderer. The chapters narrated by Sadie typically end abruptly, leaving you hanging and thirsty for more, as the book shifts to the podcast format. Then, we are taken on a separate adventure as journalist West McCray searches for Sadie in the past tense. The pace at which events unfold and secrets are uncovered is exceptional--nothing happens too late or too early--and that is largely because the writing is well balanced between the podcast by West McCray and Sadie’s own narration.

I give huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

Oh man, this was such a strong, emotional, heartbreaking story. It wasn’t my favorite but I really felt for Sadie who was on a quest to avenge her sister’s murder. My favorite part was actually the podcast that was made to find Sadie and the whereabouts of her. I could definitely see that on a show like Investigation Discovery.

Trigger Warnings: pedophilia and sexual abuse

Well, this kinda fell flat for me. Based on the premise, I was rather interested in reading this book, but there were several things about it that hindered the impact it could have had if executed differently.

I thought Sadie’s character was done rather well, especially the consistency of her stutter and how that impacted her. Her emotions regarding her sister, Keith, and her speech impediment were described in a way that effectively showed how those things influenced her decisions or behaviors. This, however, was the only strong aspect of the novel for me.

On the other hand, the alternating POVs between Sadie and the podcast seemed a bit unnecessary for the majority of the book since the podcast summed up what was already described in Sadie’s chapters. There were moments when the interviews of different people enhanced the story, but for the the most part, the repetition of certain events within the podcast added nothing to the plot. When I heard that part of this book was told in podcast format, I was even more excited to read this, but I would have preferred if Summers had written it in one the two POVs.

The transitions within Sadie's chapters were also confusing, hindering the flow of the story. Memories often came up without warning, making me think they were currently happening even though they actually weren't.

Also, Sadie is a definitely a mystery, but the lack of surprising events or reveals made everything that happened seem kinda... meh. I don’t know. When I read a mystery, I expect to be shocked by something or on the edge of my seat to read the next chapter, but unfortunately, I didn’t experience that when reading this book.

Overall, Sadie is definitely unique, as it explores subjects like sexual abuse, pedophilia, and poverty, but the other factors mentioned above kept me from rating it higher.

SADIE has become one of my favorite reads thus far this year. I was hooked from the first page. This book stole my soul and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.

The chapters flash back and forth between Sadie hunting down this man she believes murdered her sister and an interview of Sadie’s loved one and reporter searching for her.

This story is haunting yet gripping. If you are a fan of The Female of the Species then this book is for you. Everyone read this!!!

first of all, what a beautiful cover! I loved the story and the characters were so engaging throughout the story.

What an amazing book. I've always loved crime/murder mysteries so this book was right up my alley. I have read two of Summer's previous books: Cracked Up To Be and Some Girls Are. Those were two of my favorite books back when I read them, some 7 or so years ago. Sadie is now one of my favorite books. Sadie is about a girl named Sadie who has set out to find the man that murdered her younger sister, Mattie. Sadie is unique in the way that the story is told, through the eyes of Sadie and through the script of a podcast. In a lot of the books I've been reading recently I just didn't like the main character. That was not the case for Sadie. I was rooting for her the whole time. I loved how real she felt. The story felt very real. It was very captivating and emotional. There were moments throughout the novel where I felt tears in my eyes. I couldn't wait to find out what happened. I loved that the story didn't feel rushed or dragged out. It had the right amount of things happening to move the story forward at a good steady pace.