Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This intricately plotted, irony-heavy thriller alternates between two narratives: one from the perspective of the title character, who's hell-bent on finding and killing her younger sister Mattie's murderer; and one that's the transcript of a Serial-like true-crime podcast that starts after Sadie's car is found abandoned. The narratives work in tandem to create a suspenseful picture of a brave young woman with a traumatic past. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Sadie is seeking her sister's killer; months later, podcast producer West McCray seeks to learn why Sadie abandoned her car and vanished.When Mattie was born to Claire, a white, drug-addicted, single mother, Sadie, 6, became her de facto parent. Her baby sister's love filled a hole in Sadie's fiercely protective heart. Claire favored Mattie, who remained attached to her long after Claire disappeared from their grim, trailer-park home in rural Colorado. Sadie believes that Mattie's determination to find Clairewhich Sadie opposedled to her brutal murder at age 13. Now 19, Sadie sets out to find and kill the man she holds responsible for her sister's murder. Interwoven with Sadie's first-person account is the transcript of McCray's podcast series, The Girls, tracking his efforts to learn what's happened to Sadie, prompted and partly guided by the sisters' sympathetic neighbor. West's off-the-record conversations are also included. Sadie is smart, observant, tough, and at times heartbreakingly vulnerable, her interactions mediated by a profound stutter. In the podcast, characters first seen through Sadie's ruthless eyes further reveal (or conceal) their interactions and motives. Like Salla Simukka's Lumikki Andersson, Sadie's a powerful avatar: the justice-seeking loner incarnated as a teenage girl. Sadie exempts no oneincluding herselffrom her unsparing judgment. Conveyed indirectly through its effect on victims, child sexual abuse permeates the novel as does poverty's intergenerational legacy.A riveting tour de force. (Thriller. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.