A review by erica_0000
Sadie by Courtney Summers

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

 
Content Warnings: Child Murder, Pedophilia, Sexual Assault, Child Abuse, Drug Abuse, and Alcohol Addiction 
 
“And it begins, as so many stories do, with a dead girl.” 
 
This book absolutely destroyed me, and I devoured it in one night! (Despite this, the book contains heavy content so be sure to check the content warning before reading.) It was a brilliant page turner that was captivating with multiples twists and turns as a 19- year- old named Sadie runs away to hunt down the man who murdered her 13- year- old sister. It is told in dual POV with one as transcripts from a podcast run by a man named West who trying to find Sadie and the other is of Sadie herself tracking down her sister’s killer. I have never read a novel that is partially told in the form of a transcript, but I thought it was very clever and was interesting to see two sides of the same story. Sadie is just one of those main characters you can’t help but love and I loved the representation of having a main character that has a stutter. 
 
Usually, I like when novels wrap up to the point that I know what is going on with the characters and having an idea of where they are heading after the story has finished and all the mysteries have been solved. But somehow, in this book, it was so well written that I was actually intrigued by the idea of not knowing what happened to Sadie. While I would like to believe that she is alive and just can’t face home without her sister, I can’t be 100 percent sure and that is what has kept me thinking about this book long after I finished it. 
 
The only thing that bothered me, and I didn’t take any stars off for this, is the why. This might have been elaborated in the book and I just missed it, but what drove Keith/ Darren/ Jack/ Christopher to kill Mattie. He was obviously a terrible person, but as far as we know, he had never killed anyone before, so what made him snap? What happened that he decided one day he was going to kill a 13-year-old girl?


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