I am so ridiculously excited that it is FINALLY September! We're talking pumpkin spice lattes, we're talking cooler weather, and today we're talking Sadie by Courtney Summers.
Let's go back in time for a beat yes? Yes. Back in May I was lucky to have gotten a copy of Sadie as an ARC. I had read the description and it sounded fun, and very much up my alley. I'd read Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber for the earlier this year and the mash up of podcast with novel was something I'd clearly been finding enjoyable. Y'all. I read this book in just about seven hours over the course of the weekend, with most of those hours being in one day. I couldn't stop. I tried to, I had things to take care of but damn it all this book demanded my attention. 
Sadie is the story of Sadie, West, and an entire small town.
"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 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."
As I said this is a story told as a mash up of podcast and novel, but I found that I could hear the subtle differences in each characters voice during the podcast sections. I felt my heart racing when the story followed Sadie. I cried when Sadie talked about Mattie. With every page, with every turn of this story my emotions were racing, my attention could be grabbed by nothing else, and I'm pretty sure there were times where I flat out wasn't breathing. To say that this is one of my favorite novels of 2018 is an understatement. While I love reading, not every book so completely grabs me.
I did find the ending to be frustrating, but I think that was the point. In the era of #MeToo, with girls going missing, being found dead, being found worse than that, the ending was frustrating. I won't spoil it; a rarity for me, but the emotional caliber of the story would get ruined if I spoiled. This book has stuck with me for months now, and I'm sure it will continue to be in my mind. I've wanted to loan my ARC to a few people, but I spoke about it so fiercely that one of them pre-ordered it mid conversation. Even now I'm teary, I'm frustrated, I got so angry reading parts of this novel. West got on my damn nerves and I sympathized wholeheartedly with May Beth; and I maybe went a little crazy on Instagram begging Courtney Summers and Wednesday Books to actually make a podcast out of this. Actually, then ended up doing just that. A whole dramatized podcast that started a few weeks ago. The Girls: Find Sadie can be listened too through whatever platform you find your podcasts on, I personally use Podcast Addict. (Not saying that I made it happen, but I love that it did happen.)
I cannot fully explain or express why I loved this book so much. Maybe because I recognized my own anger inside Sadie? Because I've wanted my own justice for so long that following a fictional journey was somehow cathartic? Courtney Summers wrote an evocative novel, a beautiful, sad, angry, breathtaking novel. I cannot thank her enough for that.
Sadie comes out September 4, 2018, available where you buy books, and needs to be on your Goodreads TBR as soon as possible. Preferably now.
"You owe it to yourself to dig a little deeper. Don’t decide what you don’t have before you know what you do."
Until next time,
XoXo
BrainyHeroine
No comments:
Post a Comment