Told from the alternating perspectives of nineteen-year-old Sadie who runs away from her isolated small Colorado town to find her younger sister's killer, and a true crime podcast exploring Sadie's disappearance.
Perfect audiobook for a long car trip where you can listen in one sitting, it really makes the podcast gimmick pop. I really enjoyed the author's voice and the prose, although it occasionally tried too hard. I don't think this would have worked nearly as well in print.
Alternated between wanting to protect the protagonist and give her cocoa, and wanting her to succeed in her violent revenge. And that's the way I like it.
Four stars instead of five because of the ambiguous ending. It was a bold choice and I see what the author was goin for, but I simply would have preferred more finality.
The reason I did not like "the fault in our stars" has always been, that the book set out to be a tear jerker. I know illnesses are horrible and it's very sad when kids get sick and it's a story for all those kids to be heard when their future is taken away, but their stories get told thousands of times. There are people who love them so much that they are there for them, that they care about them. There are institutions, there are doctors. As sad as their stories are, they are loved, cherished and taken care of. And this book sold millions of copies, and we all cried about the end and felt so much compassion.
But the stories that actually should be told, are the stories about the forgotten kids. The kids no one loves. The kids no one takes care of. The kids that …
The reason I did not like "the fault in our stars" has always been, that the book set out to be a tear jerker. I know illnesses are horrible and it's very sad when kids get sick and it's a story for all those kids to be heard when their future is taken away, but their stories get told thousands of times. There are people who love them so much that they are there for them, that they care about them. There are institutions, there are doctors. As sad as their stories are, they are loved, cherished and taken care of. And this book sold millions of copies, and we all cried about the end and felt so much compassion.
But the stories that actually should be told, are the stories about the forgotten kids. The kids no one loves. The kids no one takes care of. The kids that have parents that have not been loved and taken care of when they were kids. The story about how poverty shapes your life. How you cannot get out of it. How you have no chance at all to make it better. How these kids are in pain constantly and there is no doctor they can go to. There is no one in the world to see it or take care of them.
And these kids are everywhere. But we do not see them. We do not see their pain. We do not help. It's their lot in life, what has it to do with our lifes. It's the cards they have been dealt with. Our childhoods had not been easier either, but see what I did with my life.
That is the encompassing lie we tell ourselves to make it okay to ignore these children. Sadies story is on of them. And it is so important to listen.
Sadie had to drop out of highschool. Her mom was not able to take Sadie to a doctor to treat her stutter. Sadie did work at a gas station, but that kind of job would have been the only thing she could have done for the rest of her life. She would have spend her life in the trailer. No one took care to help her with her mental health. She was constantly scared of the government who could take Sadie from her. The police did not bother to look after her. The school felt helpless and did not care when she got bullied.
What kind of human can you become as you grew up like this? What kind of girl would Maddie have become? How would Sadie and Maddie raise their kids when they got them?
I am deeply thankful for this story. This is a book I will tell everyone about. Because every one needs to listen to Sadies story.
