“I’m dangerous. You shouldn’t underestimate people, I want to call out. I have a knife.”
-Courtney Summers, Sadie
I was provided an ARC from Wednesday Books in return for my honest review.
Sadie’s life is all about raising her sister, Mattie. So when Mattie is found dead, Sadie is desperate to find her killer and bring him to justice–no matter the cost. When she disappears, West McCray picks up her story for his podcast, hoping that it will maybe lead to a happy ending.
There is so much to love about this book. The first aspect that caught my eye was the format–switching between McCray’s podcast and Sadie’s narrative takes a few chapters to get used to, but the alternating chapters quickly add to the pace of the book. Each viewpoint stops at just the right time, making the reader desperate to figure out what happens next (I found this especially true with Sadie’s chapters). While I thought that we might not get to know as much about McCray because his narrative was in podcast form, this was definitely not the case. I learned just as much about him as I did about Sadie.
This book was also bleak and haunting, especially because you know that there are cases like this that happen everyday. I’m currently reading Mindhunter as well, and these two books pair so well together that it’s kind of creepy–Mindhunter is about real murder cases, after all. This story felt different to me than other true crime type young adult books I’ve read–in a good way. It was realistic and heartbreaking and will be the perfect book for fall when it’s released in September.
Sadie is real, McCray is real, and that ending. Whew. I need someone else to read it so we can just discuss the ending. Be sure to pick up Sadie when it’s released on September 4!
4.5/5 stars