Reread 4/18/2019:
Still a great book and all my previous thoughts stand, but I just listened to the audiobook and I'm not certain I enjoyed it quite as much as everyone else. It was okay, but I didn't love it and if (when) I reread this book again, I'll definitely go back to the physical copy.

***

It's honestly so nice to pick up an incredibly hyped book and find out it lives up to the hype. It so rarely happens for me. This book was amazing. I read it in a single three hour sitting.

It's almost hard for me to describe how amazing it is, because it's one of those quiet kinds of amazing. Everything about it is just so good that you kind of forget flaws exist. There's something about Courtney Summers' writing style and the way she builds a story that is absolutely breath taking. I start her books thinking they're good but nothing truly spectacular, but by the time the story is reaching its climax I realize I've had trouble breathing for the past hundred pages and I haven't looked up in two hours because I've been so invested.

I loved the ending. I loved the podcast. I loved Sadie's arc and the people she met along the way and the lives she changed. I loved that she didn't go on her way to change any lives and that in many instances, she didn't even realize it. I loved that for all the story was a thriller about rape and murder, it was so very, very real.

This is the second Courtney Summers book I've read and the second one I've felt this way about, and I think I'm coming to the conclusion that she's just one of my favorite writers.

(Tentatively tagging this lgbt+. There are a number of gay characters and Sadie kisses a girl at one point, but there's never any focus on sexuality.)