Sadie by Courtney Summers ~ My Review

Sadie
by Courtney Summers

Publication Date: September 4, 2018
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 378 (Kindle Edition)
Received: From the publisher via NetGalley.
Rating: 4 stars

A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial-like podcast following the clues she's left behind.

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. 

My Review

I was fascinated by this YA mystery! Sadie is a gripping story of a girl (Sadie) who disappears a few months after her little sister, Mattie, was murdered. Devastated, Sadie sets out to find Mattie’s killer.

Throughout the story, we slowly learn the awful truth’s of Sadie’s lonely life with her mother, what she endured growing up, and how she tried to make a difference in Mattie’s life. How she wanted to protect Mattie.

West McCray, a producer and radio personality, receives a call from May Beth, the girls' surrogate grandmother, who asks West to help locate Sadie. He agrees. He also begins a serialized podcast chronicling his investigation with interviews and information he uncovers along the way.

The story is told from two points of view. One from Sadie’s and the other in the form of McCray’s podcast, “The Girls.” The cool thing is you can actually listen to the podcast on Apple or Stitcher. 

Although the podcast is really well done, and I listened to most of the episodes before I started reading the book, I found it a little redundant as the podcast is pretty much word for word what is written in the book. I would have liked some added information, but again, the podcast is brilliant and well made. 

Sadie meets some interesting people during her quest, and there are some twists and turns in the story, some I didn’t see coming! And as in life, there are some questions we never find an answer to. 

Sadie is a raw, dark and engrossing novel. I wasn’t sure what Sadie’s plan was, or if she even knew. I didn't know if she would find the man she was looking for, or if she did, could she accomplish what she set out to do - which is to kill him. 

FTC Disclaimer: I received an ARC of the story from the publisher for my honest review.

Buy: Amazon • B&N
Add to Goodreads.

FTC Disclaimer: Link to Amazon. I am an Amazon Associate. Should you purchase a copy of the book through the link provided, I will receive a small commission. Thanks!

About the Author

COURTNEY SUMMERS lives and writes in Canada. She is the author of What Goes Around, This is Not a Test, Fall for Anything, Some Girls Are, Cracked Up to Be, Please Remain Calm, and All the Rage.

Connect with Courtney

Website • Facebook • Twitter

Read an excerpt from Sadie here.

My review of All the Rage by Courtney Summer.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for my review copy of Sadie!

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear from you! 

Sadie by Courtney Summers Blog Tour!

Hello, my friends! I'm excited about Courtney Summers' new book, Sadie, and thrilled to be part of the blog tour! 

Courtney Summers has done a very cool thing here! The book is written from Sadie's POV and also from West McCray's in the form of a podcast. West, a radio personality, starts the podcast as he tries to figure out what happened to Sadie. The cool thing is they have actually produced a podcast that you can listen to! Read on to learn more about that, and I'll include links so you can find everything! 

“A riveting tour de force.”

 —Kirkus, STARRED Review

"Summers’ novel is filled with her trademark biting commentary on sexual assault and the mistreatment of girls and women at the hands of predatory men...her hunt for Mattie’s killer is captivating, and Summers excels at slowly unspooling both Sadie’s and West’s investigations at a measured, tantalizing pace." 

—Booklist, STARRED Review

“A taut, suspenseful book about abuse and power that feels personal, as if Summers, like May Beth and West, can’t take one more dead or abused girl.” 

—Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

"The fresh, nuanced, and fast-moving narrative will appeal to a range of YA and new adult readers, and serves as a larger examination on the way society interacts with true crime...It's impossible to not be drawn into this haunting thriller of a book. A heartrending must-have."

—School Library Journal, STARRED Review

“An electrifying thriller, taut as a bowstring. A coming-of-age tale, both gritty and sensitive. A poignant drama of love and loss. This -- all this -- is SADIE: a novel for readers of any age, and a character as indelible as a scar. Flat-out dazzling." —AJ Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

SADIE

By Courtney Summers

Courtney Summers is already known for her well written and dark young adult novels, earning rave starred trade reviews on every book. With a fierce and independent female lead, SADIE (September 4, 2018; Wednesday Books) continues in this vein told in part as a podcast, similar to Serial, about a missing girl determined to avenge her sister’s death. A propulsive and harrowing read that will keep you riveted until the last page, Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. 

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. 

As the pages turn, your heart will be in your throat the whole way. SADIE is darkly delicious and addictive, the perfect fall read. As a major Editor's Buzz Book Pick at BEA, Summers’ thriller will be the book to read this season, and in a creative twist, the first YA thriller podcast. THE GIRLS released the first episode on August 1st bringing SADIE to life in a new way by picking up the script content from the book and using the under-explored content area in the podcast area of teen listeners. Combining a haunting novel and additional material through the podcast, Summers has changed the way readers experienced books.

Buy: Amazon
Add to Goodreads.

FTC Disclaimer: Link to Amazon. I am an Amazon Associate. Should you purchase a copy of the book through the link provided, I will receive a small commission. Thanks! 


Excerpt (which has also been made into a podcast): 

THE GIRLS

EPISODE 1

[THE GIRLS THEME]

WEST McCRAY:
Welcome to Cold Creek, Colorado. Population: eight hundred.

Do a Google Image search and you’ll see its main street, the barely beating heart of that tiny world, and find every other building vacant or boarded up. Cold Creek’s luckiest—the gainfully employed—work at the local grocery store, the gas station and a few other staple businesses along the strip. The rest have to look a town or two over for opportunity for themselves and for their children; the closest schools are in Park- dale, forty minutes away. They take in students from three other towns.

Beyond its main street, 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. In the summertime, a food bus comes with free lunches for the kids until the school year resumes, guaranteeing at least two subsidized meals a day.

There’s a quiet to it that’s startling if you’ve lived your whole life in the city, like I have. Cold Creek is surrounded by a beautiful, uninterrupted expanse of land and sky that seem to go on forever. Its sunsets are spectacular; electric golds and oranges, pinks and purples, natural beauty unspoiled by the insult of skyscrapers. The sheer amount of space is humbling, almost divine. It’s hard to imagine feeling trapped here.

But most people here do.

COLD CREEK RESIDENT [FEMALE]:
You live in Cold Creek because you were born here and if you’re born here, you’re probably never getting out.

WEST McCRAY:
That’s not entirely true. There have been some success stories, college graduates who moved on and found well-paying jobs in distant cities, but they tend to be the exception and not the rule. Cold Creek is home to a quality of life we’re raised to aspire beyond, if we’re born privileged enough to have the choice.

Here, everyone’s working so hard to care for their families and keep their heads above water that, if they wasted time on the petty dramas, scandals and personal grudges that seem to define small towns in our nation’s imagination, they would not survive. That’s not to say there’s no drama, scandal, or grudge—just that those things are usually more than residents of Cold Creek can afford to care about.

Until it happened.

The husk of an abandoned, turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse sits three miles outside of town, taken by fire. The roof is caved in and what’s left of the walls are charred. It sits next to an apple orchard that’s slowly being reclaimed by the nature that surrounds it: young overgrowth, new trees, wildflowers.

There’s almost something romantic about it, something that feels like respite from the rest of the world. It’s the perfect place to be alone with your thoughts. At least it was, before.

May Beth Foster—who you’ll come to know as this series goes on—took me there herself. I asked to see it. She’s a plump, white, sixty-eight-year-old woman with salt-and-pepper hair. She has a grandmotherly way about her, right down to a voice that’s so invitingly familiar it warms you from the inside out. May Beth is manager of Sparkling River Estates trailer park, a lifelong resident of Cold Creek, and when she talks, people listen. More often than not, they accept whatever she says as the truth.

MAY BETH FOSTER:
Just about . . . here.

This is where they found the body.

911 DISPATCHER [PHONE]:

911 dispatch. What’s your emergency?

More about THE GIRLS podcast:

THE GIRLS: Find Sadie is the first-ever YA thriller podcast. The Serial-like show is based off the novel Sadie by Courtney Summers. In a brilliant move, Summers scripted periodic chapters of the novel like a podcast script, hosted by fictional radio personality West McCray. The six-part podcast series brings these chapters to life with a 30+ person cast, music, and sound effects and was a collaboration between Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Podcasts, and Wednesday Books. Episode 1 launches on August 1st, and the show will air seven weekly episodes available on all the major podcast platforms. The final episode will feature a bonus interview with Courtney Summers and her editor Sara Goodman.

Links to the podcast: 

Apple • Stitcher

About the Author

COURTNEY SUMMERS lives and writes in Canada. She is the author of What Goes Around, This is Not a Test, Fall for Anything, Some Girls Are, Cracked Up to Be, Please Remain Calm, and All the Rage.

Connect with Courtney

Website • Facebook • Twitter 

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for inviting me on this tour!

I love the podcast idea and have already listened to a couple of episodes! Plus, I'm currently reading the book! I hope to have a review up soon!

What are your thoughts?