I've been working on expanding my classroom library. I have a great collection of YA fantasy and sci fi. My collection of high school drama and mainstream is respectable, but I'm severely lacking in several areas. One of the areas that I'm working on is mystery. I like mystery but I'm a classics reader when it comes to whodunits. I read a lot of Agatha Christie, P.D. James, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but many of my students have a hard time approaching classic mystery. I did what I usually do when casting about and checked the awards lists which is how I found Sadie.
Sadie is a story told in two extremely different points of view. The first is the transcript of a podcast series about the disappearance of a girl, Sadie Hunter. West McCray interviews the people who knew Sadie and traces her cross country trek. It soon becomes clear that this isn't a simple case of a runaway. Sadie is driven by something, something to do with her murdered younger sister.
The second point of view is Sadie herself. Her perspective overlaps with the sections from the podcast and what she has to say is chilling. She's running head long towards a goal that she has no plan to survive. Her whole world has narrowed to the pursuit of her sister's killer.
The mystery here isn't ultimately a whodunit. It's a why is this happening and what happened to Sadie.
This is a great mystery, although not of a traditional sort. I do struggle somewhat with the idea that it's YA however. There is a lot of really tough content here. Both Sadie and her sister Mattie were victims of abuse and neglect which is always tough to read about. Summers unflinching description Sadie's poverty and struggle to survive manages to avoid feeling exploitive, but is grim nevertheless. This is a very adult book and while I have no problem with my 16 year old students and up reading this, I'd be very careful about handing it to my younger students.
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