I absolutely loved this book. The storyline and characters were fantastic, and it was mysterious right until the end. The cover art is so eye-catching as well. I will be adding a copy to my classroom and to several of my literature circles units, as it will fit with several themes relevant to teens.

I love Courtney Summers. I’ve enjoyed the majority of her books but this one took me by surprise. I was hooked from the first page and the podcast format was tons of fun. this gave me “The Female of the Species” vibe, which I LOVED.

I’m a giant fan of Courtney Summers’ novels, so I was so excited when I was approved for an ARC of her latest. And it held up to my already high expectations!

Sadie is a mystery YA novel, presented both as a podcast investigating the crime, and alternating chapters in Sadie’s voice. Sadie is nineteen years old, reported missing by her surrogate grandmother. Months earlier, her younger sister had been murdered, a crime that has gone unsolved. Their grandmother begs the podcast creator to find out what happened to Sadie, to bring her back safely.

This was a harrowing read, but of course that’s to be expected with Summers’ novels. There are lots of triggers (sexual abuse among them), so this might not be the novel for everyone. But it’s a taut, mesmerizing book that follows Sadie as she tries to avenge her sister’s death, and the podcast’s valiant efforts to retrace her journey. The characters are fully realized, down to the girls’ addict mother and the people Sadie come into contact with along the way. Really, I can’t think of anything I would want to change.

The scariest thing is that these things happen to girls in real life EVERY day.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

I definitely was not prepared for this book and all the darkness. I went into it thinking that it would be an easy breeze - oh, I was so wrong. My heart was ripped out of my chest and stomped on repeatedly. I may never recover.
Sadie is a book which will live with me forever. It was that damn good.
I would like to now point out that this book has trigger warnings of Sexual Abuse and Paedophilia!

It's not possible for me to even begin to fault this book - so let me dive straight into the positives.

Sadie's little sister Maddie has been found dead after she tried to run away - she was only thirteen. Now Sadie, with belief that she knows who the killer is, sets on a dangerous path to bring down her sister's killer.

My heart went out to Sadie. The most important person in her life is now gone from the world. She feels as if there is nothing left for her - her mother has abandoned them both and doesn't know who her father is. Sadie comes from a small town where there's not much going - for anyone. She does the best that she can and even drops out of high-school, so can work full-time as to provide for Maddie.

Sadie has a real "f*ck you" attitude. Understandable considering everything she has been through. She's clever and people don't expect that from her because she has a stutter - they all assume she's "stupid".

She was a beautifully written character. We expect her to be broken, to give up but she always remains strong and determined, for her sister's sake.

I hated Sadie's mother. I had an overwhelming desired to slap the awful woman. She abandons her children, leaving them to fend for themselves and quite honestly only cares for herself. It made me so unbelievably furious.

I absolutely loved the way the story was told. Taking alternative turns the story is told from the POV of Sadie and in podcast form by West McCray. By doing this it opened the floor for a new perspective to the story, making it more interesting to read. I adored how the podcast chapters were written - it felt as if I was listening to West McCray.

The pace of the story was consistent throughout and there was never a time where I felt bored. In fact, I devoured this book as fast as I could. The story was so gripping that I was unable to put it down. I had to know what happened next.
I can only describe this wonderful book as a heartbreaking page-turner which will leave you staying up until the early hours of the morning. You must read this book.

Riveting. Summers has never been one to hold punches, but she's outdone herself in SADIE. Once you crack open this book, you won't be able to put it down until you've figured out what happened to Sadie.

Grief. Torment. Anguish. These feelings have lingered long after reading this. Like Speak & 13 Reasons Why, this is a very powerful read.

I received a copy of SADIE on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publisher and author.

Five stars and here's why:

I laughed. I cried. I wanted to throw my kindle app/phone against the wall more than once. Ms. Summers delivers a gut punch of a story. The author does a great job of sucking you right into the story with the conflict and soon you’re glued to the pages. Serious book hanger. I just loved it so much.

The book format takes some getting used to – it’s a transcript/podcast/Sadie POV. It’s a story about a girl’s love for her younger sister. Abandoned by their drug-addicted mom, Sadie raised her younger sister Mattie. She makes it her life mission to solve her sister’s murder. Sadie Hunter is out for blood. Her sister’s killer’s blood. And nothing is going to get in the way. Except for her own grief.

Prepare to start this story and not put it down until the very end. Highly recommend.

Sadie is missing. West is on a quest to find her, recording it all along the way as part of his Serial-type true crime podcast. The novel bounces between Sadie's story and the podcast, fleshing out her background and the people she meets on her way to find her sister's killer.

Sadie is a person obsessed with one desire: kill the man who killed her sister. Her story is fraught, filled with the horrors of a child overcoming the neglect and abandonment of a drug-addicted mother and the sexual abuse of her mother's boyfriend. She pours herself into mothering her baby sister, only to have her torn away from her too young. Sadie is a broken girl in all ways, from a broken family in a broken small town. There is no hope for Sadie. There is only guilt and blame and revenge as she sets out on this quest, thinking back on the love she had for her sister, the one bright spot in her broken world that has been snuffed out.

I really love that Courtney Summers takes on these terrifying topics, and for the most part does them well. Sadie is a story about abuse, true. But it's also a story about how gut-wrenching love often is--life-ending, paralyzing, all-encompassing. Losing her sister ended Sadie, not her single-minded attempt to find the killer, and it's this loss that really packs an emotional punch. As the mother of an eight-month-old daughter, I felt those punches acutely.

That said, there are weaknesses. The book drops plot threads in Sadie's story only to pick them up and tie them off well past the point of relevance for West's benefit. Then there's Sadie's rushed ending. The book gives preferential treatment to West's lingering questions about Sadie's whereabouts when West never feels more like a framing device to flesh out what Sadie is not capable of telling us herself. The story is Sadie's, not West's. And that the whole book is about this particularly driven girl, it feels like a disservice to her character to unceremoniously cut her short and then leave what happened to her to West, who will never truly know.

Overall, I am certain this is Summers's best novel to date.

I think my issues with this are more to do with how I dislike podcasts, so the format including transcripts of a "podcast" was difficult for me to get in to? I really enjoyed Sadie's sections though.

The ending also felt like it left me hanging a bit. It was fitting though so I can't really hold that against the book.

Being both a fan of true crime stories and Serial, I was naturally excited for this novel. Add to that the buzz it’s been receiving and you got me setting my expectations high, which is something I’m wary of because half the time I end up being disappointed in the book.

But Sadie more than held up.

Trigger warning: Pedophilia, child abuse, drug abuse

Sadie centers on 19-year old Sadie Hunter's quest to find her sister's killer and the subsequent search for her by radio personality West McCray.

Abandoned by their drug-addicted mother when she was sixteen, Sadie is left alone to fend for herself and raise her younger sister, Mattie. Sadie makes Mattie her purpose, taking every thing the young girl throws at her, so when Mattie is found dead, Sadie makes it her mission to hunt her sister's murderer.

I love this book! But let me warn you, Sadie is unapologetically dark and raw. Courtney Summers pulls no punches with this one, trust me.

Sadie will reel you in from its first word down to its last. It unfolds bit by bit, chapter after chapter, going back and forth between McCray's podcast transcripts from The Girls set five months after Sadie's disappearance and the titular main character's first-person perspective set immediately after she leaves her small town to begin her search.

It was the perfect way to tell the story.

It may be off-putting for some, but I cannot imagine having this particular story told another way. I loved reading both the podcast transcripts and Sadie's POV in equal measures. The alternating chapters, a modified before and after trade-off, flawlessly moved the narrative at the right pace, revealing enough of the story to keep readers guessing but not too much that it spoils the whole thing.

Another thing I loved is the writing. Courtney Summers is no stranger to writing hard topic books, just take All the Rage as an example. Summers’ writing is sharp and on point, and she created a realistic, complicated, very human protagonist in Sadie Hunter. I can't help feeling for her - sad at what she has been through and angry at what has been done to her. Then, there's West McCray - a reluctant character who becomes more and more invested as he gets to know Sadie through the eyes of the people who knew and loved and her. West's search for Sadie mirrors Sadie's search for her sister's murderer, and I think writing the these two characters' narrative this way will give readers a broader view of the story.

Still, Sadie's boundless love for Mattie is the heart of this story. Even though she starts out the determined to avenge her sister's death, the depth of Sadie's love, and the grief and the guilt she feels for her sister stands out.

Sadie will break you and make you care. It will keep you turning the page until you reach the end. Comparable to Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and Louise O'Neill's Asking for It, Sadie will open up discussions about the realities of life that are hard to talk about. I definitely recommend this to everyone.

The format <i>Sadie</i> is written didn't work for me. I couldn't get into the story or connect with the characters.

The story is written in a kind of interview/podcasts format. I don't know... I just didn't dig it.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this title

First of all, thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for approving my request and sending me an eARC in exchange for a honest review.
You have to know English isn’t my first language, so feel free to correct me if I make some mistakes while writing this review.

Courtney Summers is one of my favorite authors – the way she writes, the atmosphere she creates, her girls that crawl inside you and you know they’re gonna stay with you all your life, no matter what.

Parker Fadley, Regina Afton, Eddie Reeves, Sloane Price, Romy Grey and now Sadie Hunter.
This will be one of the hardest reviews of my entire life.

What I love about Courtney Summers’s books? Everything.
My words won’t ever bring it justice and I can’t wait to get my hands on the physical copy because, even if Sadie destroyed me, I’m sure gonna reread it.


Sadie Hunter is nineteen.

Her life was never easy: an unknown father, a young mother too much keen on alcohol and drugs since she was a teenager, unable to take care of Sadie and herself – unable to look at her because she didn’t look like her, because she looked too much like her mother Irene.
Sadie’s world really came alive when she was six and Mattie was born and Sadie, who wanted someone to love and someone who loved her back, makes taking care of Mattie her mission in life – with a little help from May Beth, the woman who acts like the girls’ surrogate grandmother and rents them the trailer where they live.

Help so much needed when Claire takes off, leaving them alone – and this is gonna be the first and real fracture in Sadie and Mattie’s relationship.

Then Mattie, age thirteen, gets found dead – the victim of a horrible crime.
Sadie knows who did it and she’ll stop at nothing to get her revenge on the one person who took the light from her world, because without Mattie she has nothing else to live for.
Sadie is gonna do anything in her power – and she knows she’s gonna kill that man.

Five months after her departure, May Beth calls West McCray trying to get his help in finding Sadie, since her car full of her personal belongings was found abandoned along the street without a trace of the girl. West says yes - even if he disregarded the story when he first heard it – and retraces Sadie’s steps: he gets some answers but he gets even more questions. Soon he becomes invested – afraid of what he might not find, even more afraid of what he could really find along the way.


Courtney Summers wrote another masterpiece, she wrote another book that tears you apart, she gave voice to another girl who gets under your skin and you know she won’t ever leave.
Sadie broke my heart.

Courtney Summers has this flawless way when it comes to write about the ugliness in the world and in human beings, blurring them like you’re spying through the keyhole – you can’t see the entire scene, but you know too well what is happening. You don’t need for her to write every single detail, you don’t need for her to say it out loud: she shows you through Sadie’s actions and thoughts. As a reader, you only have a hazy image of what Sadie went through, but Courtney Summers expresses it in a way you get to live it, you get a lump in your throat, you get sick to your stomach.
It sounds awful, but it’s awesome – I think it’s awesome the way she gets her readers to empathize with her girls just suggesting what happened, totally captivating them.
Sadie's memories - Sadie's nightmares - of what happened to her as she was wide awake gave me the chills.

I loved its structure, the change between West’s podcast and Sadie’s voice.

Both of them bring something to the book: West talks with people, he asks questions, he sometimes hits a dead end, he lets us know Sadie through different eyes: May Beth, a professor from her school, her employer, the ones Sadie met pursuing the man who killed Mattie.
West, the one who didn’t want to be involved in the beginning, then he feels like he knows Sadie somehow and he cares about what could have happened to her.
Then there’s Sadie – this stubborn, reckless, strong, desperate, brave, exhausted girl full of grief, guilt, hate, rage and desire for revenge. This girl with a disenchanted look in her eyes who’s able to sense a lie when it gets told to her face, but who still kinda dream another life she could’ve had had the circumstances been different. This girl who’s hurting, but is still set to do everything to get some peace.

This is not a story about hate and revenge, even if it looks like one – this is a love story. It’s a story about sisterly love – a love not always idyllic, but big nonetheless. It’s the love Sadie feels towards Mattie – who we get to know through Sadie’s memories – that gets her going, even when it all looks too difficult to bear.
It won’t bring Mattie back because it’s too late to save her, but maybe she can save other girls – and she doesn’t care about herself, not until Mattie gets justice.

I loved this book, it hurt and it kept me on the edge with every step Sadie made and with every clue West discovered – bringing him close to Sadie and the truth.
That truth Sadie never told anyone.

Sadie – the book and the girl – broke me to pieces and Courtney Summers proved herself amazing once again writing another unforgettable novel: you won't be able to put it down.
I cried at those last pages because the ending is somewhat perfect in its own way and if I could give it all the stars in the world, I would without a second thought.

Never stop writing, Courtney.

Sadie revolves around two sisters, Mattie Southern and Sadie Hunter. Shortly after thirteen-year-old Mattie is murdered, nineteen-year-old Sadie disappears on a quest for revenge. The narration alternates between Sadie in the first person and transcripts of a podcast hosted by West McCray, who has come out to this small town from the big city in the hopes of learning more about Sadie’s story and maybe even finding her in the process. Some natural questions emerge quickly. Will Sadie find who she’s looking for, and did he actually kill Mattie? Will West find Sadie—and will she still be alive? Will May Beth, Claire, the other residents of Cold Creek get any closure? Yet more important questions blossom in the background. To what lengths will people go to conceal the monsters within, or in their family? Just how far can you run away from, or towards, something before you fall apart? And what, exactly, can you do when the only thing in your life that gives you meaning is brutally ripped away?

On the one hand, Sadie feels a little out of time; like many books set predominantly in that “small town America” milieu, it is filled with set pieces that freeze everything in place: a diner made up like the fifties, suburbs full of the affluent upper-middle class spilling out and blurring the edges of the bigger cities, sketchy bars looking the other way and serving the under age. On the other hand, this is a book very much of the zeitgeist of the 2010s. Sadie does some recon by stalking a fellow teenager on Instagram in a telling scene that reminds us of how much information you can find on someone online.

Similarly, the podcast half of the dual narrative feels very now. Everything about West McCray, from his name to his voice, screams NPR-like radio host, and The Girls podcast is reminiscent of investigative pieces like Serial. I never can visualize characters, but I can totally hear West’s voice in my head, the even-handed way he carefully describes the people he interviews, the places they live, the ways in which they react to the news he tells them. Summers manages to capture the cadence of a podcast perfectly yet in a way that never makes the transcript format imposing or uninteresting.

West himself acknowledges that girls like Sadie disappear almost everyday, that this is a very common story in our society. And it seems like, by adding this podcast layer to the narrative, Summers is making a statement on how these girls’ stories get told. How, once they disappear, if they are not ignored entirely then they are pieced together, rebuilt out of the stories that those they leave behind can tell the media. The picture of Sadie that West provides us is different from the Sadie we get to know from her own voice. Neither is necessarily the authoritative version (more on that below); neither really tells us “the whole story”. But you can sense the ambivalence in West’s voice, the way he is aware that even as he tries to bring attention to Sadie’s story and, by extension, the stories of other girls who have disappeared like this, he also knows he is perpetuating the appropriation of these stories as media spectacle.

There’s a lot happening in Sadie, and I’m still not sure I have unpacked it all in my head, let alone figured out how to articulate it in a review. (I guess I’m just going to have to revisit this when I get the physical copy in September….) There is so much more here than just the story of Sadie, alone on the road, looking for the man who killed Mattie. This is about what people remember about Sadie, the way they think about her. As always, Summers eschews stereotypes and stock characters in favour of rich and deep personalities who don’t always conform to our expectations. Sadie’s mother, Claire, is perhaps the best example of this: it’s easy and perhaps natural for us to want to vilify her for her absenteeism and negligence—yet Summers confronts us with Claire’s humanity, with that brutal reminder that Claire was even younger than Sadie was when she had Sadie.

And so this is book not just about Sadie, or about girls who disappear, but also about how we judge those girls—and indeed, girls and women in general. We judge them for how they act, or don’t act, how they speak, or don’t speak—basically, we find them wanting whenever we want something from them. In this way, Sadie is a tragedy, yes, but it’s a tragedy that cuts to the heart of our society’s hangups about how to talk about girls and women. Sadie’s story has been overlooked until The Girls podcast precisely because she doesn’t conform to the stories we want to tell, like the heartwarming tales of small town girls overcoming adversity and making it big. Sadie is not a stereotype, nor is she a statistic: she’s a young adult driven by a dangerous cocktail of determination and desperation.

Let’s talk about unreliable narrators for a moment, because holy shit is Sadie unreliable, and it’s fantastic. I love the unreliable narrator conceit in general, because when the author nails it, they can do incredible things to the narrative. That’s exactly what happens here. Thanks to the dual narrative structure, Summers can use West’s podcast to reveal details that Sadie doesn’t witness or chooses to omit. There’s a moment close to the end of the book where West interviews a character with whom Sadie crossed paths, and we learn that there was an entire scene between this character and Sadie, in which she reveals something very important, but she completely leaves it out of the story she tells us. I literally did a doubletake while reading and very carefully paged back through this book to the point earlier in the narrative where Sadie interacts with this character, just to make sure I hadn’t somehow missed this scene. Nope. Sadie left it out. And then she goes and lies to us.

Brilliant.

As usual, I also just love the quality and timbre of Summers’ writing too. Her descriptions, in particular, just jumped out at me in Sadie as lush and evocative:

> Cold Creek arteries out into worn and chipped Monopoly houses that no longer have a place upon the board. From there lies a rural sort of wilderness. The highway out is interrupted by veins of dirt roads leading to nowhere as often as they lead to pockets of dilapidated houses or trailer parks in even worse shape.



This passage would be sublime with just that first sentence. I know exactly what she’s communicating here. OMG, that juxtaposition of “arteries” and “veins” tho—it elevates this to perfection.

Sadie is a such a smooth yet intense read. It builds, quickly and violently, towards an explosive series of confrontations before settling down into a resolution that probably won’t surprise anyone, although certainly some might not be satisfied with it. I, for one, didn’t mind it at all. Once again Summers manages to capture all the awkward in-between moments, the dirt and grit and apposite exhaustion of a single-minded quest. This is Kill Bill stripped away of its grindhouse trappings. This is realism meshed with revenge fantasy, and there are moments where it seems like it’s about to lurch dangerously to one side and spill over, yet Summers manages to keep it all together into a coherent tale.

At one point in the novel, Sadie describes herself:

> My body is sharp enough to cut glass and in desperate need of rounding out, but sometimes I don’t mind. A body might not always be beautiful, but a body can be a beautiful deception. I’m stronger than I look.



I’m in love with that phrase, “a beautiful deception”. Paired with “sharp enough to cut glass” and, again, although I don’t actually visualize what Sadie looks like, I feel like I understand what she looks like now.

More importantly, “sharp enough to cut glass” is a perfect way to describe Summers’ own writing, and thanks to the clever narrative structure, Sadie is definitely a beautiful deception.

Dear Courtney Summers.

I am not very happy with you. You f’d up my routine. I can’t get The Girls theme song out of my head, I can’t stop thinking about the ending of Sadie, and there’s a two-litre bottle of Diet Coke sitting here on my desk that’ll get me through the morning, but I’ll have to go to the bathroom, a lot.

I don’t know where to start… The character of Sadie, “I’m the result of baby bottles filled with Mountain Dew.” Authentic, raw, brave, and heart-wrenching. Her journey for revenge is heroic and gritty. A fully developed tortured soul who takes awesome risks for her family and those less-powerful than her.

And while I’m engrossed in Sadie’s narrative, forgetting about the podcast… rip it’s gone. But The Girls podcast was just as good a thread. I could distinctly hear West’s voice, the interviews, and the back and forth with the producer. No one ever forgets that NPR sound, which you got perfectly.

Seriously, this book will stay with me for a long time. It was so damn creative and important and addicting.

Thank you for the book, no thank you for the book hangover.

Paul

Note: Sadie tells the story of a 19-year-old driven to revenge after the murder of her sister. It is told through the alternating points of view of both Sadie and a Serial-type podcast.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, and Courtney Summers for the advanced copy for review.

This book was like a punch to the gut. It’s going to leave one hell of a book hangover. Beautifully written of course. Some of the words I’d use to describe it are dark, disturbing, angry, fierce, emotional, hopeful, messy, real. Sadie is made of nails but also so very vulnerable. This book is raw & full of fierce love & the need for justice. Damn. I want to start on page one again.

Thank you Net Galley and Wednesday Books for providing the ARC.

I absolutely loved the format in which this book is written - as the transcript of a radio show or podcast. Because of this, I really wanted to give this 5 stars, but reading it from the perspective of my YA readers, I think that some not-so-strong readers might get confused with the switch back-and-forth from the radio transcript portions to the action-in-flashback portions. If the readers can handle the narrative switches, then they will definitely love this story.

Strong characters make for people for whom I feel empathy or sympathy, and it made me want to keep reading to see if Sadie and the reporter both meet their personal goals. (Minor spoiler alert: Readers who want neat, spelled out endings shouldn't expect one from this story; life's not like that, and neither is this book.)

Summers does an excellent job of creating tension and mystery without frustrating the reader but also without giving too much away. Very skillfully done! I can't wait to get this for my HS library.

You’ve done it again Courtney Summers! Written a book that opens doors for conversations that we need to be having and exposing us to the harshness of a reality that, somehow, continues to remain undiscussed.

This book is not only beautifully written but a necessity. Please read this (along with ALL of Summers books), tell your friends to read it, and keep this conversation going. It isn’t going to be easy but the most important things rarely are.

Sadie by Courtney Summers

Pages: 320

Genre: young adult

Synopsis
Sadie has run away from home, she’s on a mission to get revenge on the death of her sister Mattie. They were very close, as Sadie practically raised her. The details of their difficult childhood are slowly being told as a podcast host is trying to piece their story together. The book follows Sadie on her journey as well as the host West McCray researching, interviewing family and presenting the story in form of a podcast.



My thoughts
three out of five stars

This book is about very important subjects. Children abuse, drug problems, teenagers running away and how they’re treated. Sadie is trying to get revenge, everyone else is trying to figure out what happened to her and her sister Mattie. Along the journey Sadie uncovers pedophiles and tries to gather as much information about her target as she is able to. The way Sadie keeps going indicates how dark the story will get. We don’t get to know how Mattie died until the end, but it was pretty easy to guess after a while. The few “plot twists” in this book is generally easy to guess, but it’s more a story of how important it is that someone is paying attention to Sadie, Mattie and girls like them.

Turns out a book partly formatted as a podcast might be a bad idea. They’ve really leaned into the idea of “Serial-like podcast” (which it was marketed as) and it’s very noticeable as I read it. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts, there might be a reason they’re audio. It reads like a very confusing interview. I had problems finding out where the host was talking from, if she was “out in the field” following up leads, if she was interviewing someone or in the studio. It’s written sometimes. Also some weird choices are made in how the story is told, which works for a book, but isn’t usual for actual podcasts. I just got confused at times on what type of story telling they tried to achieve, because it flunctuates between an article written after all the facts are found and a news article being more continually updated. It might be a personal preferance to stick to one style.

But that the podcast isn’t real also seem to limit what kind of story can be told. In real life, awful and weird things happen. In the story, certainly awful things happen, but all the “random” people and actions was placed there to fill out the narrative and give descriptions or accounts of Sadie and her story. It’s an important story to tell, but it was very straight-forward. The story felt somewhere on the edge of having too much information of Sadie’s whereabouts to not knowing anything else than directly what was needed. There were no deeper dive on characters we met, like a “Serial-like” podcast would have, or any other details.

Back to the other half of the story, where we’re following Sadie directly. This was the most interesting parts for me. I admire her drive and the protectiveness over her sister that we get to see and hear about. It’s obviously she’s not thinking right, after the death, but we really don’t get to see just how hard she’s taking it or how she’s feeling. I missed that sometimes. She puts on faces, clearly stated, and it’s amazing to watch how she manages to con her way into information. But I didn’t really feel like I got to know her, or any of the other characters closely. She has a strong personality, but through all the different viewpoints (and trauma) it’s hard to decide what’s really her. Which might not be a wrong choice, it just made it more difficult to connect with the story.

I loved the book “All the rage” by Courtney Summers, this one just didn’t fit me.



I received this copy through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

Phew. This book pulls no punches. Be prepared to ache, to cry, and to feel every agony as you dive into these pages. Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. With startlingly real characters, vivid action, and realistic relationships, this book is all about growing up, and the heartbreaking reality for many kids. 

The book unfold in two parts: one storyline follows Sadie as she hunts her sister Mattie's killer across the United States (not spoiling anything, it's in the book description), and the other storyline follows Podcast host West in Serial format as he hunts Sadie, who has since gone missing. Sadie is raw, like a fresh wound, and West starts out all-business, but the deeper into the story he goes, the more the ache settles in his storyline as well.

Sadie's younger sister was brutally murdered, and though the police trail has long since gone cold, Sadie follows her intuition and hunch from a previous experience, hunting her sister's killer across the United States. She leaves no rock unturned, and in't afraid to break the law to get her revenge. You will be chewing your nails to their stubs as you follow her take gambles, both painful and heartwrenching, to get to the bottom of the mystery. West follows her, his story intercutting with interviews from Sadie's adoptive grandmother, addict mother, and the characters Sadie has left behind on her hunt for retribution. But this book isn't just about revenge. This book is about the love between sisters, and how nothing can ever get between that, not even death. 

Both storylines interweave, meander, and eventually unfold into a tumultuous finale that will leave you exhausted. There are many thematic events that probably deserve a disclaimer, but that makes the book all the more real and heartbreaking. You will inhale this book, and it will burn the entire way down. Fans of the podcast Serial and the novel One of Us is Lying will devour this book!

I was really excited when I got approved to read an ARC of Sadie. Courtney Summers has been one of my favourite authors since she wrote This is Not a Test and I have read every single one of her novels. Summers is phenomenal at writing realistic young adult characters. Her characters are raw and honest. They’re never a caricature of teens or what adults perceive teens to be like and fail at portraying them. Summers also conveys emotions so viscerally that I actually feel like it hurts to read her books. She doesn’t shy away from difficult topics and she has a way of ending her books so it’s incredibly realistic and not all neat and tidy.

Sadie encompasses all of the great things I love about Summers’ novels. Sadie Hunter is a great character. She’s a high school drop out, she has a stutter, and she comes from a very difficult background. But she is also extremely driven by her love for her sister, Mattie, and she doesn’t let her shortcomings deter her from trying to hunt down her sister’s killer. It’s easy to get swallowed up into Sadie’s emotions and experiences, and if this were a book just about Sadie, it would be pretty difficult to get through because of what she’s endured.

In between Sadie’s chapters, there are transcripts of a podcast called The Girls by West McCray. The Girls follows West’s journey as he tries to find the truth about Sadie, who has gone missing since her sister’s death. I love when books include different mediums and the podcast was really well done. It builds suspense and it also reveals the outsider’s perspective of Sadie. I also liked how it gave more insight on the minor characters in Sadie’s life and how she impacted the people she came across.

While the cover is beautiful and looks more light-hearted compared to Summers’ other novels, the text on the cover is a key giveaway that this book will not be what you expect. It’s captivating, heart-wrenching, and bone-chilling. This may be a new contender for my favourite novel from Summers.