Reviews with content warning for Self harm - Sadie

This is one of two books I have ever felt the compulsion to write a review of. The content warnings for this book are incredibly extensive, the most prevalent of which being the sexual assault of minors. I have never before read a book that truly, deeply disturbed me. I have read psychological thrillers that made me paranoid, but I have never been unsettled in the same way I was when I read this book. Not much bothers me. This book bothered me. I will admit that this issue is partially my fault for not doing proper research into how extensive this discussion of sexual assault was. Regardless of whether I was aware of how much this was explored in Sadie, I felt that it was incredibly excessive. I have read books that handle assault in a beautiful way while not forcing it down the reader's throat. This was not the case with Saide. There is a very fine line, in my opinion, between trauma for character/plot development's sake and trauma for trauma's sake. This book pole-vaulted over that line. While I understand that the things displayed in this book are a reality for some, I thought the way in which they were presented was incredibly poorly handled. While reading, I got the feeling that the author was not interested in giving their character depth, but instead in writing about the sexual assault of children because they wanted to. Let me make myself clear. I am NOT calling the author a pedophile. I am simply saying they seemed to be fixated on the idea of bringing up these elements at every turn regardless of whether it was necessary or beneficial to the story. They seem to be screaming "This book is dark! I promise!" with each available opportunity. An example of this is in the

last half of the book where Saide realizes a character who was quite literally just introduced is sexually abusing his Tball players. This revelation does not provide any character development nor does it help move the story along. It is only referenced once more in the book and even then, all that is said is that it happened. Why include that detail if it seems to serve no purpose?

In addition to the overzealous attempt at a traumatic backstory, I found the main character, Sadie, to be just as artificial. I think now is a good time to mention that I have never personally been in any situation akin to what she experienced in this book, so take what I am saying with a grain of salt. However, Saide seemed like a middle-aged man's interpretation of an antisocial teenage girl. While it would be entirely appropriate and expected for her to be detached and somber, she seemed comically moody and jaded. To me, she came across as a caricature of what she should have been. She was insufferable and I was counting the pages until I didn't have to listen to her anymore.
Despite these repulsive aspects of the book, there were some ideas I did appreciate. In the synopsis of the book which The StoryGraph has provided, they explain that this book alternates chapters between Sadie's point of view and the podcaster's. I always enjoy it when authors experiment with the format of a "traditional" book to bring something new to the table and I thought the podcast transcripts were creative enough to be refreshing while also being orthodox enough to not be jarring. This brings me to the second thing about this book I enjoyed. I listened to portions of this book as an audiobook as well as read it in a physical form. The podcast chapters were well executed on the audiobook and if I wasn't aware I was listening to a book, I could have thought it truly was a podcast. I would highly recommend both reading physically and listening to the podcast chapters (although that is not necessary for the Saide chapters). Unfortunately, that is where my praise ends.
Overall, the idea for this book was commendable, but the execution was not. I personally am a big fan of psychological thrillers as well as murder mystery books, but this book was not thrilling enough to be a thriller nor mysterious enough to be a mystery. It simply fell short in every category.

Content Warnings

rosita's review

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emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

4.5

I would say Sadie is a lot more "new adult" than "young adult", and i wouldnt for the life of me recommend it to someone younger than 16.
If you want to read this book, i ask you two things:
1- listen to the audiobook: the book has some podcasts elements to it and i cannot express how good the full cast audiobook does that stuff. It enchanced the experience a lot.
2-please read the trigger warnings. While good, it is very graphic in some terrible, terrible topics.
By the way, Sadie, the protagonist, has a stutter and that is never cured. It was once of the best representations for a stutter I have ever seen.
Spoilers:

I really liked how it showed that the monsters walking among us sometimes look like good people: they get people jobs, they build cities, they have families. They are still monsters.
While i am frustrated at the open ending, it was the best way of finishing the story: it gives us a little bit of hope, even though we probably know what is the most likely thing to have happened.

Content Warnings

toodeadtoread's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Sadie by Courtney Summers

kbenavidez44's review

directorpurry's review

steph_canread's review

bookishdiya's review against another edition

nyoomie's review

racheldkidder's review

rosita's review

toodeadtoread's review against another edition