Sadie

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 6

Chapters 7-18

Chapters 19-29

Chapters 30-35

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Podcast

In his podcast The Girls, West is detached from the story, while Sadie lives the events firsthand. This symbolizes how West, in his position of power and privilege, contrasts with Sadie, who embodies the pain, struggle, and despair of the poor. West is not able to capture the true Sadie in his podcast. The reader can see the contrast between the Sadie that West and his interviewees see, and the Sadie that emerges in her own words, actions, and memories. This symbolizes the inability of people to truly know what is in others’ hearts and minds.

The podcast also symbolizes how violence against women and girls is packaged into a product for consumption, as evidenced by the popularity of “true crime” podcasts and television shows.

The ending of the podcast—and the novel—is left ambiguous, which is the author’s way of demonstrating that life does not always dispense clear-cut happy or sad endings. Often there is no closure to life’s mysteries. Most true crime podcasts have tidy endings, with major loose ends wrapped up. In this story, the murderer is brought to crude justice, but the mystery was never about Keith; it was about Sadie’s fate, which remains unknown.

The name The Girls

When Claire asks West what he will call his podcast, he replies that he is thinking of calling it “Sadie and Mattie.” Claire suggests The Girls instead, which would signify not just her own girls but all the girls that Sadie saved. This means all the girls that Keith will not go on to abuse and all the girls and boys that Silas will not prey upon from his T-ball team. More broadly, the title symbolizes all the girls everywhere who suffer in silence and who fear the very people that are supposed to protect them. These young women will carry their physical and emotional damage well past their girlhood.

The title The Girls is also about Sadie and Mattie. Claire and May Beth, like many families, collectively refer to Sadie and Mattie as “the girls” on many occasions. This symbolizes that Sadie and Mattie truly were a unit, a pairing so deeply joined together that even Mattie’s death could not separate them. Sadie thinks in terms of being alive in relation to Mattie being alive, so Sadie cannot tell how her own sense of self can exist in the absence of Mattie. They were “the girls,” so Sadie does not know how to continue as a singular “girl.”

Switchblade

The switchblade that Sadie carries symbolizes her bravado as she sets out on her journey of revenge. Having the switchblade makes Sadie feel dangerous and powerful, which covers up her genuine feelings of fear and inadequacy. That Sadie stole the switchblade from Keith and now intends to use it to kill him symbolizes Sadie taking Keith’s power away and turning it back on him. Successfully using the switchblade to prevent Caddy from raping her increases Sadie’s self-confidence and makes her feel that she can take on the challenges of her quest. Conversely, Sadie fails to stab Silas with the switchblade. Her hesitation allows him to exert his physical power over her, resulting in a loss of Sadie’s certainty. When Cat runs away from Sadie after finding the switchblade, Sadie realizes that it gave Cat the wrong impression of who Sadie truly is. Sadie is not the dangerous persona she had been trying to project, and it hurts that someone she cared about believed in her self-projected lie. Sadie says she is too “broken” to use the switchblade against Ellis, showing that she no longer believes she is dangerous and powerful.

Sadie’s Stutter

Sadie’s stutter symbolizes her inability to communicate with others. Because of her difficulty in forming clear words, Sadie avoids speaking aloud as much as possible. This makes people think of Sadie as cold and unapproachable—or worse, stupid. This prevents Sadie from making connections with the residents of Cold Creek and her peers in school. Her inability to communicate is ironic, given Sadie’s tremendous talent for words. Sadie’s tools for dealing with her stutter—tools she discovered without any help from therapists or other adults—also symbolize her intelligence and ingenuity.

Postcard

The postcard that arrives seemingly from Claire has many symbolic functions in the story. When it’s first mentioned, the postcard symbolizes Mattie’s hope and trust that her mother still loves her and wants to be with her. May Beth saw it as more evidence of Claire’s selfishness and lack of concern for her daughters, in that the postcard gives them false hope. When the truth comes out about the postcard’s origins, it stands as a sign of Sadie’s good intentions towards saving her sister, which went horribly awry. The postcard becomes a symbol of Sadie’s profound guilt and her need to make up for her mistake.

The idea of a postcard itself has other symbolic meanings. West describes Montgomery as “a postcard town,” meaning a beautiful place that one would want to visit. Receiving a postcard gives the recipient a snapshot of an ideal. Claire’s postcard supposedly came from Los Angeles, which symbolizes glamor and a lifestyle very different from Cold Creek. Sadie chose Los Angeles to convey the idea to Mattie that Claire was in a beautiful place.