Sadie

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.