A Stabbing for Sadie

published by StoneGarden.net Publishing

ISBN-10: 1600760724

ISBN-13: 978-1600760723

First review by Adam Armstrong

07.12.2008

Waking up on the kitchen floor, covered in blood, with a big knife in your hand; sounds like a Saturday morning at my house.

A Stabbing for Sadie is an after-the-fact confessional that examines the life of our protagonist and narrator Sadie Lynn Stadski. Sadie was raised by an abusive mother and uncaring step-father. Her life is spent battling depression from her upbringing, her weight, and the perception of those around her. After following a road that she thought would free her, Sadie declares herself a failure at life and decides to stop battling the inner demons and start taking on the outer ones with a knife.

This book falls into a lot of the same trappings first time novels fall into: too much time spent in the characters head instead of viewing their actions, a lack of subtlety when making commentary on society, a limited perspective while trying to keep the novel in first person, and keeping important facts from the narrator to surprise the audience. However the writing is quite good. Sadie is given a realistic voice and can easily be viewed as a real person, the kind you’d visit Wikipedia to learn more about after finishing the book. With this demonstrated ability, I expect Friday to go on to big things in the near future.

3.5 out of 5

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Second review by Barbara Mulcahy

07.16.2008

This is an intriguing book in as much as the reader would not be able to distinguish whether it is fact of fiction, which I think was the author’s intention.

It is a story of a woman called Sadie who was found, at the beginning of the book, lying on the kitchen floor with a bloody knife in her hand. Not knowing what she had done or why she was taken in for questioning.

She regresses throughout the book from childhood to the present recalling in detail – too much I thought - all the way through until only at the very end you realise what has happened to her and what she had done.

It is a book which I thought was a little far fetched as nobody in my mind could have all this happening to her, mentally instable or not, but on the other hand the reader would not be able to stop reading as the need to know what really is going on is very strong.

Although I have criticized this book, I think it a very good first book by Wednesday Lee Friday. It is very profound with gifted grammar. She has a brilliant knowledge of the English language that makes the whole story come to life. A very imaginative mind, as I said at the beginning, one wouldn’t know if this story is fact or fiction.

A short book, easy to read and hard to put down.

To quote – she says “Myself I laugh a lot, I’m a regular laugh riot.” If it were me I wouldn’t laugh, I would find a hefty piece of rope and head for the woods.