Sadie (Audiobook Review)

I’ve never liked audiobooks. I just can’t seem to pay attention to them and I end up missing out on the story. I was recently reminded of this when I attempted to listen to Children of Blood and Bone on Audible, and got almost to the end before realizing I had no idea what had happened.

And yet, I kept hearing about this book called Sadie and everyone that mentioned it was complimenting the audiobook because it was told in a podcast format. I was intrigued by the book itself, I’ll admit, because of a few materialistic things; 1) the cover is gorgeous in its simplicity, color scheme, and slight creepiness 2) the author shares my first name (Ok! but it’s rare I find authors named Courtney, feel free to recommend some below!) and 3) well, I kept hearing about it. I didn’t know much about the plot, which I found to be to my benefit.

So, I decided, on a whim one day to pull up a sample of the book on the Barnes and Noble website. It’s my way of trying to be responsible about book purchases and not giving in to hype alone. Although most of the time it seems like I’m sucked in, oftentimes more so than I was before. I didn’t even get through page one before I switched to the Audible sample. I was only a few minutes in when I clicked ‘use credit.’

“ You think you can take our pain and turn it into something for yourself? A show?”

That’s because Sadie starts with a podcast called ‘The Girls,’ narrated by the character West McCray, which continues throughout the book. The show follows the story of a girl who goes missing after her little sister dies. The chapters focused on the podcast are interspersed with those told from the point of view of the missing girl, as she goes missing. Sadie’s side of the story. And that’s all I really think you should know going into it.

Honestly, the premise and plot of this book are things that have been done before time and time again. And yet, Courtney Summers makes it fresh again. The use of the podcast in what would normally be a detective or concerned-family-member story line, makes the story modern while also making it perfect for Audio format (which, as I said before, is saying something coming from me).

“We wanted to give them a voice before they disappeared.”

The voice actor for West McCray in the Audible version of the book is spectacular, shining brightly amongst the full cast, some of which are better at portraying their characters than others. What I loved about the podcast segments was that listening to it felt real, as if I was hearing the story of a missing girl on NPR. This made the hard-hitting nature of the story hit even harder. In fact, I sometimes wished that the entire story was told through McCray’s eyes, in the form of a mock true-crime podcast series.

Meanwhile, Sadie’s point of view was immaculately well written In fact, it was almost too well written. Sadie is a high school dropout who has grown up poor in a trailer park. And yet, her first-person view chapters are highly lyrical, insightful, thoughtful, and often verging on poetic. Not that a dropout in a trailer park can’t be all those things, but I found it sometimes to be too clearly an authorial voice rather than that of a nineteen-year-old, even considering everything she’s been through.

There were numerous beautiful lines that I could pick out from this book that read so nicely. At times these seemed forced, especially coming from Sadie, but were still beautiful all the same.

I also wasn’t particularly a fan of the voice actor for Sadie. She was great, but the person who voices McCray was spectacular, so she dulled in comparison. Sadie also has a stutter, which is a big part of her character, and I found the parts where the voice actor had to mimic the speech impediment was a bit overdone, although I feel that I’m quite picky when it comes to that type of thing.

What was interesting about the different segments was that the podcast is usually reiterating things we’ve already learned from Sadie’s perspective, yet it was still interesting to see how McCray followed Sadie’s trail, how he was lead astray, and what he thought about what happened to her as he learns about it.

The book illustrates, so well, both how a girl goes missing and how the world reacts to that.This book also dealt well with heavy topics (see trigger warning section below if you so chose), not only as these issues can affect an individual, but a group of people.

“It’s painful when pain like that is so obvious.”

My favorite part of the book was the ending, which I both hated and loved because of what it said about our world and how realistic it seemed to me. At first, I didn’t think it was enough, but then I thought about what the ending meant for the rest of the book, and the commentary it was trying to make on our world. This made it incredibly sad, but also powerful.

I loved The Lovely Bones when I read it, and this reminds me of that, not only because of the premise but also because of the slight twist that each has to a classic murder story. I would also recommend Sadie to those who like true crime, podcasts, and sad stories.

Overall, I gave Sadie 4 out of 5 stars. It was a really great read although I found slight issues with voice at time. I’m so glad it broke through my audiobook ban.