SADIE by Courtney Summers

Rating: 5 / 5

SADIE by Courney Summers is a book that I’ve had recommended to me multiple times and when it showed up in my #stackofshame post on Instagram, several people again spoke up for it to be moved higher on my TBR! I have also often heard that it is amazing on audio, so I put in for a library hold on the audio to go with my print copy and it finally came through last week!

SADIE tells the story of the title character Sadie, a girl who has gone missing on her quest for revenge. Sadie has not had an easy life. She has had a severe stutter all her life which puts her at a distance from many people. She isn’t much more than an inconvenience to her mother who is rarely sober and is constantly bringing new boyfriends home. When Sadie is a young girl her mother has another daughter and Sadie is put in the role of Mattie’s primary caregiver, doing her best to protect Mattie from the world and the attentions of the men that her mother brings home.

This book does tell of a difficult life with trigger warnings for child abuse and sexual abuse.

Sadie and Mattie’s mother abandons them early on. The girls don’t have much, but the sisters are devoted to each other. When Mattie is found dead, Sadie is determined to get revenge and she sets out to do just that, following the limited clues she has at her disposal to track down the killer.

This book is told from a couple points of view. We get Sadie’s story from her POV as she purchases a car and heads out of town on the hunt for her sister’s killer. She knows who she’s after, but isn’t telling the reader the full story right away. Sadie is a smart, tough young woman who feels the police haven’t done enough to track down Mattie’s killer. Sadie is willing to risk everything to go after the man responsible.

The rest of the novel is told in the form of a serialized podcast called The Girls. Reporter and radio personality West McCray hears Sadie’s story and he decides to investigate, hoping to track Sadie down. The podcast portions of the text are really where the audiobook shines as it is really formatted like a podcast with musical intros, episode numbers, etc. The audiobook uses a cast to voice the different characters and bring the story to life.

I really appreciate a book that takes a unique twist on the narrative format and this book definitely does that with the alternating POVs and the slightly offset timelines of West’s investigation and Sadie’s journey. The novel was really well done and I highly recommend that you pick up SADIE on audio as well.