“But love is complicated, it’s messy. It can inspire selflessness, selfishness, our greatest accomplishments and our hardest mistakes. It brings us together and it can just as easily drive us apart.” 

CW: Pedophilia, sexual abuse, drug abuse, murder

This was a raw, emotional, and incredibly dark book. There are zero moments of levity and as someone who reads a lot of contemporary romances, it took a lot out of me to get through it. I am grateful that Courtney Summers did not sensationalize any of the abuse that went on before and during the events of this book. Though it's definitely present, it happens off of the page. She focuses on the toll it took on the victims rather than the acts themselves. If you can handle the subject matter (which I wasn't sure I could at first), I'd highly recommend it!

Sadie reads like a puzzle, with half of the story being told from Sadie's perspective and half from the perspective of a man doing a podcast on Sadie's disappearance. It's partially up to you to piece together the timeline, which I loved!

Make sure you listen to it as an audiobook as it's partially told in the style of a podcast with a large cast of voice actors! They even added ambient noises to set the scenes during interviews. I mean WOW - one of the best audiobook experiences ever. 

Zoe

I didn't know what to tell her. That I tried not to think about that kind of stuff, because it was painful, because I thought I could ever have it, but when I did end up liking someone, it always made me ache right down to my core. I realized pretty early on that the who didn't really matter so much. That anybody who listens to me, I end up loving them just a little.

Heartbreaking, hopeful, and impossible to look away from. 

I am really loving this recent trend in YA thrillers of killer women. Books like The Female of the Species, Far From You, Big Little Lies, Black Iris,Dangerous Boys, The Girl from the Well, and Dare Me. What do all of these have in common? They are about women taking back power from men who hurt women.

I think the narratives we are used to give men the agency, and it is so interesting to see the trend of women fighting back. 

So what is this book? Sadie follows podcaster West McCray, a mid20s man investigating a two-sister disappearance for posterity. And in scenes throughout, we see Sadie herself, off to kill her sister’s murderer. 

There’s not exactly a wide cast of characters for a novel, but Sadie makes up for it. Sadie is such a fantastic lead character; she’s out for a revenge, bitter and angry, a sexual assault victim, pansexual, grew up poor, and has a major stutter. I absolutely adored her, and watching her go further down this awful track was so horrifying. 

There’s a really interesting element of this book where, at least in the arc copy, no one in the book really does anything beyond imply pedophilia until around 60% of the way through the book, when Sadie asks a man point-blank whether he's a pedophile. It’s a horrifying reality for Sadie; it’s a simple accepted fact of her life. And she attempts to push it down, but when the sentence is finally said, when Sadie finally calls it out, I winced so strongly. That element is just one facet of the horror of this book - that Sadie knows it's wrong, and yet she refuses to say it. 

Courtney Summers does not shy away from the harsh realities of this world - the contrast between poverty and wealth, the idea that privileged people often get away with horrifying deeds, the lack of agency given to girls in our society. I really think the most accurate description of this is stark . I could not look away, but I think it was worth it. This will haunt me for a very long time. 

TW: sexual abuse, child abuse, addiction.

elise