Book: Sadie by Courtney Summers, Narrated by Rebecca Soler, Dan Bittner, Gabra Zackman and Fred Berman

Published September 2018 by Macmillan Audio|Length: 7 hours 57 minutes

Where I Got It: I own the audio book

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

A missing girl on a journey of revenge. A Serial―like podcast following the clues she’s left behind. And an ending you won’t be able to stop talking about.

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 meager 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.

Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep you riveted until the last page. 

I’ve heard a lot of buzz around Sadie, and I finally got around to listening to it!  I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would and it was just okay for me.

The story was pretty interesting, and I did like that you had a combination of podcast episodes and Sadie’s story.  You see West try to figure out what happened to Sadie as you actually see what happened to Sadie.  It’s two definitely two stories in one, and it made the book interesting but it also…I don’t know, something about it really bothered me.  It’s liked, I liked that the two stories ran alongside each other but they didn’t really come together the way I thought they would.

I did want a little bit more resolution at the end, which is pretty open-ended.  While I don’t mind stories with open-endings, I really wanted one for this book.  I think I assumed the podcast would bring some sort of closure to Sadie’s story, and that didn’t happen.  At least to my satisfaction.  I know it’s not always the case with stories like Sadie’s but it didn’t stop me from wanting it.

I did feel for Sadie, and she really did everything she could to take care of her sister.  She certainly went on her own path for revenge and I don’t blame her.  It’s a lot darker than I expected, and I’m not sure why.  I do like that she took care of her sister, and wanted to protect her and keep her safe.

It does inspire a Serial-like podcast, and that was more interesting to me than Sadie’s story…not that her story didn’t interest me, because it did.  I think I was just more interested in seeing West try to piece Sadie’s story together.  Still, it was nice to actually get Sadie’s story as well, because it certainly would have been easy to not write Sadie’s side.

I’m in the minority in my opinion of Sadie, in that everyone else seems to love it.  I wish I did, but I’ve read a few of her books, and I’m starting to think that her books aren’t for me.  The mystery didn’t grab me, and I can’t say I’m surprised by any of what’s revealed throughout the book.

I am glad I did Sadie as an audio book because I don’t think I would have finished it otherwise.  With several narrators, I did expect to hear from all of them pretty equally, but I mostly felt like we heard from two of them for most of the book.  That was slightly disappointing to me, since I think they all did a great job.

2 stars.  I didn’t love Sadie as much as I wanted to.  I was disappointed by the ending, and I wanted more closure to Sadie’s story.