Sadie by Courtney Summers
I am always a fan of when a book is written in a different way. To get a new and fresh reading experience is nice every now and then, so when I heard that Sadie was a murder mystery/ true crime/ podcast style book I was really intruiged. This was like nothing I’ve ever read before and when I found out that it had a full cast on audiobook I instantly bought it and began listening right away. I absolutely loved the audiobook version and found myself addicted and needing to find out exactly what happened to Sadie’s sister and what happened to Sadie through her own recount of experiences and through the podcast narrarator’s findings. It was great! I was so fully invested in this story from the very beginning. It was easy to see exactly what was happening and it all pieced together perfectly to give you one big picture of all the horrors these poor girls faced.
Sadie is a teenage girl whose drug addict mother leaves her and her little sister in the care of their grandmother. Luckily this grandmother owns a trailer park so the girls have a place of their own to stay in while still going to school and attempt to live as normal lives as possible. But when Sadie’s younger sister ends up murdered, Sadie thinks she knows who is responsible and runs away with a single mission in mind: to get revenge on the one person who took her world from her, her sister’s murderer. But along the way she finds out that this is a much bigger situation than she ever could have imagined and it will take everything from her to exact her revenge.
I loved how real and gritty and honest this book was. You feel like you are really there with these people in this small town, sitting at the diner, eating a slice of apple pie. The characters are so vivid, each one like someone from your past that you can relate to exactly. I can’t describe how different the experience of this book is, but it just works for some reason. I loved that as a reader, you find out things as the podcast narrator does and each clue and change of POV gets you a little bit closer and closer to that inevitable ending of when Sadie gets her revenge. But the suspense is killer! I couldn’t stop listening,
My only complaint being the ending, and since I don’t want to spoil this for anyone I won’t go into detail. I just will say that I felt like I wanted more. There is such a build up to find an answer and then it suddenly is over before I felt like my feelings could catch up, much less feel resolved. I need maybe a follow up book or something more. But that is my only reason I even dared drop the star rating down to a 3 star. If it hadn’t ended the way it did, I think this could have easily been a five star read. But for experience and audiobook version quality and enjoyability I’d definitely say its a five star experience and definitely worth the read!
This is one that does have a few triggers that you should be warned about. Some sexual situations that might not be suitable for everyone. And there’s the fact that this entire book is pretty much based off of a girl who wants to kill her little sister’s murderer. So with that being said, you have to go into this with tough skin and not with a queasy stomach. I was beyond into this book though and think its a great audio read if anything!
If You Liked This Book
If you want more of that killer mystery vibe, then I’d suggest reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. These books both show you a darker side to what some people are willing to do and what they will go through in the sake of revenge. Told from the POV of the women themselves, these can really show you how dark the world can be sometimes.
Let’s Discuss
Have you read Sadie or listened to it like I did? What did you think of it? I’d love to know! IF you haven’t read it, is it something you are planning on reading? Or not your type of book? It’s definitely different from a lot of what I’ve been reading lately, so I’m not usually one to read true crime but it was definitely interesting!
