I would never have read this book, if someone else didn’t tell me I absolutely should, so that she could have my copy when I was done. And I am glad she is such a convincing friend because wow! This book is just so… so… special.

The story has multiple narrators. Part of the story is told as a true crime podcast. The other half is told by Sadie, as she lives it. I like going into stories blind, so I didn’t know what to expect, and that made this story so much the richer for it. West McCray is the journalist making the pod cast. He was contacted by May Beth Foster, the “grandparent” of Sadie. Sadie is missing, and May Beth does not think the police are trying hard enough to find her. Here what we know at the beginning. Sadie is missing. Her car was found abandoned with all her possessions far from home. Some weeks/months earlier her younger sister Mattie was found dead in a farm field. More characters you will love, and hate will come into this story, but it’s best not to give any of that away.

This book is both powerful and sad. In the vein of Living Dead Girl it rips emotions from the reader that you would rather not feel, or think about. At the heart this is the story of a missing young woman, but it is about so much more. About the hidden lives of people we know, and the visual lives of people we see every day and do nothing about. There is a saying “It takes a village to raise a child”, and this story is an example of what can happen, when the village is not there, or too poor and burdened with their own sorry fates to notice the fates of others.

A powerful book that I shall not soon be forgetting.