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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 meagre 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.
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Any quotes I use are from an unpublished copy and may not reflect the finished product."I close my eyes and I let the music own me, turning myself into the idea of a girl, or an idea of an idea -- a Manic Pixie Dream, I guess, the kind everyone says they're tired of but I don't know that they really mean it. The girl nobody ends up loving long or loving well, but nobody wants to give up either."
I don't think I'll ever recover from reading this book. Sadie was hard to read and even harder to put down. Her past and present were difficult to stomach, and I'm positive her story will stay with me for the rest of my life. No child should have to endure or experience what she did, and I think that's why this story was so impactful -- it's something that happens every day. Children are neglected, taken advantage of, abused in unimaginable ways, and the perpetrators are not always caught.
I want to be able to tell you that Sadie's story has a happy ending, but I can't do that. Regardless of how her story plays out, she's lost something irreplaceable. There was nothing about Sadie's life worth celebrating, and the one thing she loved, her sister, was stolen from her in the middle of the night. She loved Mattie more than life itself, and was like a mother to her sister. It was a difficult relationship, but Sadie did everything in her power to make sure her sister had a better life than she did growing up.
I really enjoyed the layout for this book. The chapters alternate between Sadie's perspective and West McCray. West works for a radio station, and he was tasked with the story of Sadie's disappearance. We see his story unfold through podcast-like interviews and his own personal experiences over time. It was unique and really offered a different side to the overall story. It allowed characters Sadie interreacted with to have a second chance to share their perspectives, and it was usually one we didn't see when they were with Sadie herself.
If you start this book, be prepared to read it all the way through. It's almost impossible to put down. There's this need to know aspect about the story, and I felt like everything would be okay if I just kept going. I had to see Sadie's story through to the end. I had to make sure everything worked out the way it was supposed to. I had to know.
Courtney Summers has woven an incredibly complex and horrific story. I can't say that I enjoyed reading it, because the content was too disturbing and left a bitter taste in my mouth. I really thought things would get better if I kept reading, but how can they when you're only uncovering more lies and dirty secrets? Sadie is a hard read. It's dark and it's twisted, but the scariest aspect is how true it could be. There are people in this world living that life, and... and I really don't want to think about it anymore.
Going into this one, I assumed Sadie was going to be a murder mystery set in a small town, but it is so much more than that. Her story makes me want to cry and scream at the world we live in, and I cannot imagine the pain Sadie must have endured during her childhood and throughout this book. Courtney Summers has written a life-changing story that left me feeling angry, hollow, and irreparably broken.
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