Publishers Weekly
★ 08/06/2018
“I can’t take another dead girl.” That’s why May Beth Foster asks radio reporter West McCray to help find 19-year-old Sadie, May Beth’s trailer park neighbor and honorary granddaughter. Sadie took off from her home in Cold Creek, Colo., when Mattie, the 13-year-old sister she practically raised, was murdered. (Their mother, an addict whose boyfriends came and went, is absent.) Despite a stutter that’s gotten her teased and bullied, Sadie is brave unto recklessness, and she won’t rest until she finds the man she thinks killed her sister. West, initially reluctant to get involved, lets May Beth’s grief and his boss’s urging to start a podcast goad him into starting the search for Sadie. The resulting true-crime podcast alternates with Sadie’s first-person narration from the road, West’s knowledge usually lagging behind what readers know from traveling with the driven, grieving Sadie. Initially distracting, the podcast becomes an effective way to build out backstory and let myriad characters have their say. The result is a taut, suspenseful book about abuse and power that feels personal, as if Summers (All the Rage), like May Beth and West, can’t take one more dead or abused girl. Readers may well feel similarly. Ages 13–up. Agent: Amy Tipton, FinePrint. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
"A riveting tour de force" — Kirkus (Starred Review)
"Summers excels at slowly unspooling both Sadie’s and West’s investigations at a measured, tantalizing pace".—Booklist (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)
"A taut, suspenseful book about abuse and power." — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Summers has pulled no punches when it comes to diving into the darker side of teen lives." —Bustle
"An expertly crafted, genre-defying YA mystery. ...Sadie is a triumph of innovative storytelling." — Washington Independent Review of Books
"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."—A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
"Sadie is an electrifying, high-stakes road trip—a gripping thriller with a true—crime podcast edge. Clear your schedule. You're not going anywhere until you've reached the end." —Stephanie Perkins, New York Times bestselling author of There's Someone Inside Your House and Anna and the French Kiss
"A haunting, gut-wrenching, and relentlessly compelling read. Sadie grabs you and won't let you go until you've borne witness." —Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Carve the Mark and The Divergent series
School Library Journal
08/01/2018
Gr 9 Up—Nineteen-year-old Sadie Hunter is going to kill the man who murdered her 13-year-old sister, Mattie. So begins the latest compelling work by Summers (All the Rage). The book alternates between Sadie's first-person perspective as she crisscrosses Colorado in search of Keith, who sexually abused her when he dated her mother and who she believes murdered Mattie, and the transcript of a serialized podcast called The Girls. The podcast, set in the future after Sadie's car has been found abandoned with her belongings inside, details a New York City radio host's search for her. His interviews with her family and those who crossed her path provide an outsider's perspective to Sadie's actions and interior monologue, expanding on themes of revenge, ineffective policing, poverty, and addiction and its impact on parenting. Both story lines propel the plot and provide context. The book touches often on the fallacies of how we perceive and judge others, notably in the way Sadie is judged for her stutter, which also further isolates her on her journey. 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. Is it ethical that the podcast—with its money and investigative resources Sadie's poor family lacks—tells her story without her consent? Readers will likewise hope that Sadie, unlike so many missing girls, finds her way home. However, as in the case with too many of those victims, this book's conclusion doesn't tie up neatly. VERDICT It's impossible to not be drawn into this haunting thriller of a book. A heartrending must-have.—Amanda Mastrull, Library Journal
OCTOBER 2018 - AudioFile
Courtney Summers’s powerful story of love, neglect, abuse, and revenge is narrated with irresistible urgency by Rebecca Soler and Dan Bittner, along with an ensemble of supporting narrators. The daughter of a drug-addicted mother, Sadie was left to care for herself and her younger sister, Mattie. When Mattie is murdered, Sadie sets out to identify the killer. Summers’s writing is compelling, and Soler and Bittner keep listeners glued to this grim account. Part anguished road trip and part expository podcast, the set-up works well and relieves a bit of tension. Soler excels as the tortured, stuttering Sadie, and Bittner wrings every drop of compassion from radio producer West McCray. Some voices are better suited to their characters than others, but this is a production that will not be forgotten. S.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2019 Odyssey Award, 2019 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2018-06-18
Sadie is seeking her sister's killer; months later, podcast producer West McCray seeks to learn why Sadie abandoned her car and vanished.When Mattie was born to Claire, a white, drug-addicted, single mother, Sadie, 6, became her de facto parent. Her baby sister's love filled a hole in Sadie's fiercely protective heart. Claire favored Mattie, who remained attached to her long after Claire disappeared from their grim, trailer-park home in rural Colorado. Sadie believes that Mattie's determination to find Claire—which Sadie opposed—led to her brutal murder at age 13. Now 19, Sadie sets out to find and kill the man she holds responsible for her sister's murder. Interwoven with Sadie's first-person account is the transcript of McCray's podcast series, The Girls, tracking his efforts to learn what's happened to Sadie, prompted and partly guided by the sisters' sympathetic neighbor. West's off-the-record conversations are also included. Sadie is smart, observant, tough, and at times heartbreakingly vulnerable, her interactions mediated by a profound stutter. In the podcast, characters first seen through Sadie's ruthless eyes further reveal (or conceal) their interactions and motives. Like Salla Simukka's Lumikki Andersson, Sadie's a powerful avatar: the justice-seeking loner incarnated as a teenage girl. Sadie exempts no one—including herself—from her unsparing judgment. Conveyed indirectly through its effect on victims, child sexual abuse permeates the novel as does poverty's intergenerational legacy.A riveting tour de force. (Thriller. 14-18)
