And it begins, as so many stories do, with a dead girl.

Synopsis

Sadie hasn't had an easy life, and when her drug addict mother disappears, leaving Sadie and her little sister - Mattie - at the mercy of their surrogate grandmother, Sadie tries her best to provide a normal life to Mattie.

But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world comes crumbling down and she is the only one who knows who killed her, or at least who is to blame for her murder. Filled with rage, she embarks on a journey to avenge her sister but when she doesn't return her grandmother contacts a podcaster - West McCray  - to investigate.

My thoughts

Right after I finished listening to "Sadie" I felt a strange need to scream at the top of my lungs at the cruel world. It felt like someone had just pulled the rug out from under my feet, I felt devasted and defeated, didn't know what to do with my life anymore.

Sadie is one of those books that seem innocent but really is a pawn of the devil. It consumes your thoughts until it is the only thing you can think about, and then buries you deep in the pile of all the emotions known to men.

Sadie is not your typical murder mystery story, where you suspect every character and try to link them to the murder. It's a pretty straightforward story where you know who the killer is and why they did it,
but you still keep wanting more 'cos the plot is that much powerful, and it manages to break you by the end of it with its shocking and unpredictable ending. Mystery here doesn't really revolve around "the murder" but around the disappearance of our protagonist.

It is written in a podcast format and the audiobook really sounds like one. It features more than 30 voices, and every voice actor acts out their character with veritable talent. I don't know if it is usual for an audiobook, but the voice actors in this one has done a great job of bringing the characters to life.

Sadie is a story about family and how far we are willing to go to protect the ones that we love.  It starts with a missing girl and a serial-like podcast following the trails she's left behind. We switch back and forth between podcaster's narrative and Sadie's which allows for an immensely immersive experience. Sadie's chapters are very raw, harrowing and heartbreaking. These multiple perspectives enable readers to experience both sides of the story and unravel the mystery behind Sadie's suspicious disappearance.

For some people, the future ahead is opportunity. For others, it’s only time you haven’t met and where I lived, it was only time. You don’t waste your breath trying to protect it. You just try to survive it until one day, you don’t.

I know some people didn't like the ending, but for me it was perfect. It was real, it was infuriating and it was haunting. I don't understand our predilection for happy endings. The world we live in is not a happy place and most things don't end up the way they are supposed to or the way we expect them to.  The purpose of the ending of this book, in my opnion, was to shake us up to the core so we can at least start talking about the atrocities of the world we live in.

Do i recommend this book? Well, it's complicated; I low key high key want everyone to listen to this book, but I also feel like a very bad person for wanting to shove the trauma and pain that comes with reading this book onto others.

PS: I want to see Katherine Langford playing Sadie, if it gets picked up for a movie adaptation.

PPS: This book comes with multiple trigger warnings.  Please, make sure to read about them before picking it up.

21 January, 2019