Sadie Blog Tour (review & excerpt)

SADIE 

By Courtney Summers 

September 4, 2018 

Wednesday Books 

Courtney Summers is already known for her well written and dark young adult novels, earning rave starred trade reviews on every book. With a fierce and independent female lead, SADIE (September 4, 2018; Wednesday Books) continues in this vein told in part as a podcast, similar to Serial, about a missing girl determined to avenge her sister’s death. A propulsive and harrowing read that will keep you riveted until the last page, Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career.  

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. 

As the pages turn, your heart will be in your throat the whole way. SADIE is darkly delicious and addictive, the perfect fall read. As a major Editor's Buzz Book Pick at BEA, Summers’ thriller will be the book to read this season, and in a creative twist, the first YA thriller podcast. THE GIRLS released the first episode on August 1st bringing SADIE to life in a new way by picking up the script content from the book and using the under-explored content area in the podcast area of teen listeners. Combining a haunting novel and additional material through the podcast, Summers has changed the way readers experienced books. 

PRAISE FOR SADIE 

“A riveting tour de force.” 

 —Kirkus, STARRED Review 

  

"Summers’ novel is filled with her trademark biting commentary on sexual assault and the mistreatment of girls and women at the hands of predatory men...her hunt for Mattie’s killer is captivating, and Summers excels at slowly unspooling both Sadie’s and West’s investigations at a measured, tantalizing pace."  

—Booklist, STARRED Review 

  

“A taut, suspenseful book about abuse and power that feels personal, as if Summers, like May Beth and West, can’t take one more dead or abused girl.”  —Publishers Weekly, 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 

  

“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." —AJ 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 

  

"Summers has pulled no punches when it comes to diving into the darker side of teen lives.” – Bustle 

 “We love a good podcast mystery, so we are here for this fall 2018 release from Wednesday Books.” – RT Book Reviews 

About the Author 

COURTNEY SUMMERS lives and writes in Canada. She is the author of What Goes Around, This is Not a Test, Fall for Anything, Some Girls Are, Cracked Up to Be, Please Remain Calm, and All the Rage. 

More about THE GIRLS podcast: 

THE GIRLS: Find Sadie is the first-ever YA thriller podcast. The Serial-like show is based off the novel Sadie by Courtney Summers. In a brilliant move, Summers scripted periodic chapters of the novel like a podcast script, hosted by fictional radio personality West McCray. The six-part podcast series brings these chapters to life with a 30+ person cast, music, and sound effects and was a collaboration between Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Podcasts, and Wednesday Books. Episode 1 launches on August 1st, and the show will air seven weekly episodes available on all the major podcast platforms. The final episode will feature a bonus interview with Courtney Summers and her editor Sara Goodman. 

EXCERPT FROM SADIE 

THE GIRLS 

EPISODE 1 

[THE GIRLS THEME] 

  

WEST McCRAY: 

Welcome to Cold Creek, Colorado. Population: eight hun- dred. 

 Do a Google Image search and you’ll see its main street, the barely beating heart of that tiny world, and find every other building vacant or boarded up. Cold Creek’s luckiest—the gainfully employed—work at the local grocery store, the gas station and a few other staple businesses along the strip. The rest have to look a town or two over for opportunity for them- selves and for their children; the closest schools are in Park- dale, forty minutes away. They take in students from three other towns. 

 Beyond its main street, Cold Creek arteries out into worn and chipped Monopoly houses that no longer have a place upon the board. From there lies a rural sort of wilderness. The highway out is interrupted by veins of dirt roads leading to nowhere as often as they lead to pockets of dilapidated houses or trailer parks in even worse shape. In the summer- time, a food bus comes with free lunches for the kids until the school year resumes, guaranteeing at least two subsidized meals a day. 

 There’s a quiet to it that’s startling if you’ve lived your whole life in the city, like I have. Cold Creek is surrounded by a beau- tiful, uninterrupted expanse of land and sky that seem to go on forever. Its sunsets are spectacular; electric golds and oranges, pinks and purples, natural beauty unspoiled by the insult of skyscrapers. The sheer amount of space is humbling, almost divine. It’s hard to imagine feeling trapped here. 

But most people here do. 

 COLD CREEK RESIDENT [FEMALE]: 

You live in Cold Creek because you were born here and if you’re born here, you’re probably never getting out. 

 WEST McCRAY: 

That’s not entirely true. There have been some success sto- ries, college graduates who moved on and found well-paying jobs in distant cities, but they tend to be the exception and not the rule. Cold Creek is home to a quality of life we’re raised to aspire beyond, if we’re born privileged enough to have the choice. 

 Here, everyone’s working so hard to care for their families and keep their heads above water that, if they wasted time on the petty dramas, scandals and personal grudges that seem to define small towns in our nation’s imagination, they would not survive. That’s not to say there’s no drama, scandal, or grudge—just that those things are usually more than residents of Cold Creek can afford to care about. 

 Until it happened. 

 The husk of an abandoned, turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse sits three miles outside of town, taken by fire. The roof is caved in and what’s left of the walls are charred. It sits next to an apple orchard that’s slowly being reclaimed by the nature that surrounds it: young overgrowth, new trees, wild- flowers. 

 There’s almost something romantic about it, something that feels like respite from the rest of the world. It’s the perfect place to be alone with your thoughts. At least it was, before. 

 May Beth Foster—who you’ll come to know as this series goes on—took me there herself. I asked to see it. She’s a plump, white, sixty-eight-year-old woman with salt-and-pepper hair. She has a grandmotherly way about her, right down to a voice that’s so invitingly familiar it warms you from the inside out. May Beth is manager of Sparkling River Estates trailer park, a lifelong resident of Cold Creek, and when she talks, people listen. More often than not, they accept whatever she says as the truth. 

 MAY BETH FOSTER: 

Just about . . . here. 

This is where they found the body. 

 911 DISPATCHER [PHONE]: 

911 dispatch. What’s your emergency? 

The murder of thirteen-year-old Mattie Southern rocks the small, throw-away town of Cold Creek, impacting no one more than Mattie’s nineteen-year old sister Sadie Hunter, who has taken care of Mattie since their drug addicted mother left. After an investigation turns up no leads, Sadie sets out on a long journey to find the justice she and Mattie so deserve and ends up missing. West McCray, a radio personality, hears about Sadie’s story and sets out on his own journey to uncover just what happened to Sadie, recording his findings and investigation in a podcast.  

Y’all this book is brutal and painful and not the least bit easy to read. It’s also powerful and addictive and masterfully written. I could not stop reading Sadie. There were times when I wanted to, when I really, really wanted to, as my stomach become more knotted and my heart ached more and more with each chapter...but I simply could not put it down, I couldn’t bear to walk away from Sadie Hunter until I knew how her story ended.  

Sadie explores the heaviest of heavy themes (drug addiction, child neglect, sexual abuse, murder) and author Courtney Summers does so with unflinching honesty and depth. If you’ve ever read a Courtney Summers novel then you know she has this startlingly beautiful way of cutting right to the heart of human nature, exposing all the bloody, bruised, battered, shocking, and authentic parts of it...and Sadie is certainly no exception.  The alternating chapters of West McCray’s podcast and Sadie’s POV work brilliantly together allowing readers to feel intimately connected to Sadie, yet offering much needed reprieves from Sadie’s intense mind and thoughts.  

Something I’ve come to expect from Summers is thoughtfully and complexly crafted characters and the characters in Sadie are just that. For the most part, these characters are complicated, messily flawed, some are just straight up fucked up, overall unappealing.  They’re also utterly compelling and captivating and feel so very real. It doesn’t matter whether you like these characters (Sadie included) or not, you’re going to be moved by them and never forget them no matter what. 

With razor sharp writing and relentless storytelling, Sadie’s story, so full of heart stopping twists and tiny yet infinite unexpected moments, delves into the darkest of corners and the greatest of fears...and I love-hated every single second of it. And that’s the thing about this book, hate it or love it, either way this story is going to stay with you, you’re going to carry Sadie Hunter and Mattie Southern with you forever.  

Stunning, thoughtful, unforgettable, Sadie is truly a must read! 

MY RATING

5/5 Cupcakes