Book Review of Sadie by Courtney Summers

So I've just read the thriller Sadie literally in the span of 24-hours and I can't get it out of my head. I want more! It's hands down one of the best books I've ever read. And I'm usually not even that much of a thriller person. I usually prefer my romances so I can hide away from jump scares and vivid murder scenes.

I'm not doing any spoilers in this review, just talking a little bit about the effect it had on me. So if you haven't read it yet, no need to worry lol.

It's basically a murder mystery. It's split into two perspectives, Sadie's perspective and the perspective of a radio station doing a podcast called The Girls; In it, they tell the detective side of trying to find Sadie, who is missing. Only us readers ever really know where Sadie is, until we don't . . .

Essentially Sadie's sister was murdered and she knows who did it and is out to kill the man who did it throughout the whole book. I'm not going to say how it ends, but I am going to say the ending just about killed me. It didn't give me what I wanted. Being a writer, I can see why Courtney did end it the way she did, but as a reader, I respectfully despise the decision.

I wish there was a sequel but this is the kind of book I could see being powerful as a standalone novel.

What I like about this thriller is I literally could not stop reading. Every chapter made me NEED to know what was going to happen next. Sadie meets a lot of different characters on her search and Courtney does a good job of creating entertaining interactions with those characters while also keeping the plot moving.

I personally just really liked Sadie's personality and the idea of her not being a victim. Her personality was the opposite of a victim. She was aggressive and mad and ready to take her rage out on the man she felt deserved it. But at the end of the day, she also had this side to her that wasn't capable of the killing, that was innocent in comparison to the antagonist. This made her extremely likable, that she had grit to stand up for herself and for her sister, but also compassion. What was so sweet about her was her sister was the love of her life. She did everything for her. This book has a lot of family themes, dark and sentimental ones.

The pacing was amazing. Sadie was constantly making way on her journey. And the podcast had good pacing in comparison. It seemed whenever Sadie went somewhere, the podcast was getting close to her whereabouts, getting so close. Each page it felt like it was getting closer and closer to the podcast and Sadie being on the same page; and whether or not that does end up happening, I'm not going to be the one to tell you. You're welcome?

For me, books are made to help people, and ultimately this book took a good stab at sexual assault and sexual predators and instead of showing us the cliché side of the sad aspects of it, it shows the other side dealing with revenge and justice. Instead of just pointing out an issue, it shows the importance of it. It doesn't pretend to know how to solve it but it's the effort of the protagonist that matters. Strong female protagonists are what I yearn for as a reader.

I only hope I'm as lucky as Courtney and get to show the world some of my strong female characters too.

Sadie is a character who will be hard to forget. I find that a lot of books fade when I haven't read them in a while, but this book will definitely stay with me.

I encourage you to read it!