Sadie is angry, and has been for a long time. Born to a drug addict mother in a trailer park and raised partly by a friend of her grandmother’s, Sadie has had it tough. So when her baby sister Mattie was born, Sadie is determined to care for her so she doesn’t have to go through what she had. Hunger. Cold. Little if any love from their mother. Mattie becomes Sadie’s life and vice versa. But the older Mattie got, the more defiant she became until one day she left and was never seen again.

Now, 19-yr-old Sadie wants revenge. She misses her sister like missing air in her lungs. She has a mission. She is going to find the man that took her sister from her, and when she finds him, she will kill him.

In the meantime, a radio announcer West McCray has been working on stories about forgotten small town America and learns of Sadie and Mattie’s story. As West follows the clues Sadie has left behind her, The Girls is made into a podcast for the public’s listening interest. Will he ever catch up to her? Will Sadie finally find who she is looking for, and really do what she plans?

Interspersed with telephone call and interview scripts as the DJ follows Sadie’s path, this brings a richness to the novel and provides back story as we follow Sadie on her quest to murder. Told in two viewpoints – West McCray’s search, and then Sadie herself. When Sadie finds herself in situations similar to her past, terrible memories surface, we catch a glimpse, and then she’s back in her quest again. This story is heartbreaking, enraging and heartbreaking all over again. So many girls go missing, and so many are forgotten. Sadie hasn’t forgotten anything and she is out for revenge. Brilliant!

Author – Courtney Summers

Age – 15+

(Poverty, Trailer park, Runaways, Murder, Crime, Missing Girls, Revenge, Calculating Predator, Podcast, Quest, Road trip, Small towns, Alcohol and drug addiction, Abuse)