"Thirteen, Mattie. I kept you alive for thirteen years. Waking her up in the morning, making her meals, walking her to the school bus, waiting for her at its stop when the day was over, grinding my bones to dust just to keep us holding on and when I lay it out like that, I don't know how I did it. I don't know where, underneath it all, you'd find my body. And I don't care. I'd do it all again and again for eternity if I had to. I don't know why that's not enough to bring her back."
Man, this book is going to haunt me for a while!!
Sadie's whole life was her younger sister, Mattie. They lived in a small Colorado town in the middle of nowhere, where no one really ever wanted to stay if they could escape. Sadie didn't know her father, and her mother was an alcoholic and drug addict who favored Mattie, but never had her life together long enough to really care for her.
Sadie made raising Mattie her primary responsibility. They had something of a surrogate grandmother in May Beth, the woman who owned the trailer park in which they lived, but for the most part, the two of them were on their own in between sporadic appearances from their mother and her various boyfriends. Mattie worshiped her older sister and knew she could depend on her.
But as Mattie approached her teenage years, she began challenging Sadie more and more. And when their mother left for good, sending a postcard from Los Angeles, Mattie wanted nothing more than to go find her, and she didn't understand why Sadie didn't want to go. So one day, when Mattie was 13, she left, ostensibly to find her mother. Three days after going missing, Mattie was found murdered.
Mattie's death destroyed Sadie. But she isn't going to sit idly by, mourning her sister. She's going to find the man she knows is responsible and kill him.
"I'm going to kill a man. I'm going to steal the light from his eyes. I want to watch it go out. You aren't supposed to answer violence with more violence but sometimes I think violence is the only answer. It's no less than he did to Mattie, so it's no less than he deserves. I don't expect it to bring her back. It won't bring her back."
Sadie goes on a lonely journey across the state of Colorado, telling no one where she has gone, putting herself in harm's way again and again, in order to find her sister's killer. She is only 19 years old.
Courtney Summers has created an absolutely incredible, haunting, poignant sucker punch of a book. It's sad, hopeful, disturbing, thought-provoking, and it hurt my heart, but it was amazing. Sadie is one of the most unforgettable characters I've seen in some time, and even if her methods weren't always above-board, her motivations were. She was still a young girl at heart, forcing herself into a very adult role, and there are moments in Sadie that illustrate that dichotomy so well.
The book alternates two different forms of narration—Sadie's first-person account and a podcast, which picks up the girls' story from the very beginning and follows until Sadie's own trail has grown cold. West McCray, the podcast creator and narrator, interviews those Sadie encountered on her journey and doesn't exactly know what story he's really following until it might be too late.
Sadie is easily one of the best, most affecting books I've read all year. Summers did a fantastic job. And while Sadie is a novel, stories like these, sadly, are all too true.
I read this book recently and it has indeed stuck with me just like with you. Great review.
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