“It’s a story about family, about sisters, and the untold lives lived in small-town America. It’s about the lengths we go to protect the ones we love … and the high price we pay when we can’t.”

From the first page, the author sets the stage for the story. The reader knows to expect a tale highlighting sisterly love, told against the backdrop of the forgotten people of small-town America. What the reader will discover is that this simplistic description barely scratches the surface of the complexity of the story. Podcast stories often incorporate quotable, “catchy” language like this, which make them commercially accessible.

“Mattie used to say it was my stubbornness, not my stutter, that was my worst quality, but one wouldn’t exist without the other.” 

Sadie is defined by others by her stutter as her dominant, negative quality. Mattie, who knew Sadie best, believed that Sadie’s stubbornness held her back more than her stutter. Sadie contends that her stutter forced her to develop a tough, determined, and stubborn personality, so that she could fight back against the challenges she faced.

“You owe it to yourself to dig a little deeper. Don’t decide what you don’t have before you know what you do.” 

Danny must convince West to pursue his investigation of Sadie’s disappearance after West dismisses the idea as insufficiently interesting. This symbolizes the tendency of the dominant culture to disregard the importance of marginalized groups like young, poor, rural women. West makes a snap assessment of Sadie’s situation, and Danny is wise enough to force West to look beyond that impulse.