Niki’s Review: The Sadeiest by Austrian Spencer
This book is amazing and intricate and worth a read. This book is all about death and repaying your sins once you do. It sounds like something you’ve read before, but you haven’t. It’s a very unique take on it all and I really enjoyed it.
When you die, your body goes here or there or somewhere, unless something goes wrong. If that happens, you become a Sadeiest (a combination of sadist and poltergeist), and none of them are exactly sure why they get the chance, but they are able to work off their sin in the afterlife. If it happens, that soul is whisked to different locations and forced to help souls move out of their bodies at the moment of death, and in exchange, they work off a bit of sin that was acquired in life.
One cool twist is that they can only do it within their lifetime. Let me explain: they jump all around the globe but only in times where they were alive. So I can’t go back and help Abe Lincoln move on, and I can’t go forward and help anyone who dies after me move on. Only those that die while I lived.
Another thing that sets this novel apart is the interspersing of artwork at the end of each chapter. The author explains that The Sadeiest began its life as a graphic novel that ‘wasn’t meant to be’ but the story lived on in his head and he turned it into this. I’m very glad he did. Spencer has an incredible storytelling style and the voice he gives each character is both unique and just really fun to read.
I mean, just look at it!
Time is also an interesting concept to Spencer. He tells the story in a compelling order that really works. It’s not always chronological. And it works really well since the dead can jump around to any moment that happened in their lifetime.
I wouldn’t say this novel is needlessly gory. There is blood and guts and (obviously) death, but I don’t think I’d say it’s overdone and it’s certainly not gore for gore’s sake. Blood and guts are a thing that come with death and if you’re telling this story, there is no way around it. Spencer’s novel touches on the horrors of the holocaust for one Jewish woman, a serial killer, and his horrible acts (again, he doesn’t go deeply into them just for shock value. I’ve listened to true crime podcasts that would have gone deeper into this without being considered ‘too far’), and many other forms of death. I think it’s all done amazingly well.
This story starts with a bang and never let's go. If I haven’t said it already, go get a copy and read this. It’s available on Amazon and links are at the bottom of my review.
Just for clarity, I’m leaving out several characters because I don’t want to give away the whole book. Read it and meet them all yourself. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
**Spoilers Below**
The novel begins with a prologue of death. A young girl upset because a boy doesn’t notice her at her party shoots herself in the head (literally starting with a bang). But it’s not her first time. She does it over and over again in this cycle she can’t escape. There is a man on go-carts that gets thrown and killed while trying to impress his office crush.
And then there is John. He’s a kid who answers his door to find a woman asking for his parents. John doesn’t die, and neither does the woman…yet. But we learn something about John. He can see when people will die. And he hates it.
We meet Williams. He’s reliving his death over and over and is unable to stand or function. His body is broken and in pieces, but he still exists. When he’s finally able to function somewhat, he meets Henreich, a man with no eyes. Just dead, empty eye sockets.
Henreich is Williams’ mentor (for lack of a better word) and teaches him what’s happening. He confirms to Williams that he’s dead and shows him around. They are in the world, but not exactly part of it. The living move all around them and Williams accidentally passes through a woman. Her soul fights his and he is painfully expelled.
Henreich explains that the dead carry with them what they had on them when they died, so for Henreich that’s a whole backpack worth of things, but for Williams, well, he showed up empty-handed.
Then Henreich introduces Williams to ‘the Lifetimer’. It’s a moving wall of soul-eating power. If it catches up to the Sadeiests, their souls will be destroyed, forever. You can’t outrun it or sneak around it. There is only one way through. You have to find the person the Lifetimer is coming for. You see, if the Lifetimer exists, someone is about to die. Normally, the soul leaves the body at the right time, but if there is a Lifetimer, there is a problem. The soul is panicking or stuck and the Sadeiest has to find that dying person and get into their body, free the dying soul so it isn’t destroyed, and hide in the shell of the body until the Lifetimer passes (each body can contain two souls, and Sadeiests work in teams so they have to get the soul out before the Lifetimer comes or one of the Sadeiests dies and the soul is trapped and not taken by its Lifetimer). And that’s it. They free the stuck soul and they work off a bit of their sin. I mean, that’s not completely it. The Sadeiests must live through the painful death of the body to earn their penance.
Marshal is a rocking horse at a playground. Russell is a kid. Winston is a British newcomer to the town – lights ants on fire. Winston finds the dead man (Williams) and points him out to Russell. Turns out, Winston has found a lot of the dead people in town since moving there. No, not a lot. All of them. What does it mean? He tries to explain to a very confused Russell who just keeps saying Winston is a murderer (spoiler alert, he’s not). And then we meet Winston’s indestructible ant. That’s right, the kid who blows up ant hills has been on the hunt for a very special ant, and he’s finally found him. Not only is the ant indestructible, Winston tells Russell “I can’t die.” He also mentions his brother John (who is freaking awesome, and who we’ve already met briefly in the prologue.
We switch back to Williams and Henreich. Williams is inside a body absorbing its memories. Spencer does a really interesting switch here from third person to first as he takes in the dying’s memories. It’s very cool and really makes you feel like you’re in the moment with him. He comes out and talks to Henreich about what he learned and Henreich informs him it’s not normal to see the lives of the dying and he’s never known another Sadeiest that can do it. The life he sees makes Williams so emotional, he accidentally kills the woman before her time.
Oops, guess he doesn’t lose any sin for that one. Apparently, neither does Henreich who gets older instead of younger after the kill.
Russell and Winston go to meet John and find out when Russell will die. John looks at him and…something is wrong. Russell isn’t a person. He’s a ‘vessel’ and suddenly, Russell is unrecognizable to John. Death’s disembodied voice above them says to John “Well met, Harbinger.”
Next, we meet Pez. An ant that comes out of the hivemind and becomes a leader of a destroyed ant colony. He is important. “Pestilence has arrived.”
And then it’s Mania. We move to a hospital with localized gravity and flipped 90 degrees, killing many.
Back with Williams and Henreich, we meet Sinclair. A serial killer that has killed Henreich twice (You know, because he took up residence in the murder victim’s body). Now it’s time for him to do it again and free the soul of his next victim, a woman bloodied and mutilated…Sinclair has even taken her face. They decide to try and kill, or at least wound Sinclair while in his victim’s body, but Henreich finds it’s going to be difficult (not just because chunks of her flesh litter the ground below her) because she’s heavily drugged. Williams jumps into Sinclair’s body, expecting the usual fight and explosion, but finds nothing. No soul to fight. But the nothing isn’t nothing. It compacts and forms a nothing shadow that formed into something dark and shadow-like. From inside the woman, Henreich stabs Sinclair and when Williams leaves his body, the pooling darkness follows him – but don’t think Sinclair is dead. Nope. He finishes killing the woman and now Williams has the darkness that follows him around like a puddle puppy.
We then get our first real introduction to Greta (though we’ve heard her name before) she was the Sadeiest paired with Henreich before Williams arrived. She was a Holocaust survivor who spent time in Auschwitz and though her story takes a while to unravel, it’s a real doozy. Well researched, gut-wrenching, and not what I’d expected.
We jump back to John and Death who chat for a bit. We learn the boy John’s brother brought is indeed a vessel and the one Death hitched a ride on. There are tons of such vessels out there. Death is there to warn John that the 7 horsemen of the apocalypse are coming (remember, we’ve already met a couple). Death tells John that Death’s body must be destroyed to save humanity.
Henreich and Williams find their next soul in need of freeing. Someone who knows who Sinclair is. Luckily, she calls the detective and spills all she knows just before getting hit by a car.
Back to Greta. She was sent to Auschwitz with her grandmother and it’s hard for both of them, though grandma doesn’t survive a brutal beating by one of the guards. It takes her a while to die. Once Greta is alone, she’s targeted by some women that sleep in the same building. When they attack, she smashes one girl's neck with a board – killing her instantly, stabs and kills another, and scares the other so badly, she runs into the night to get shot by guards. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of Greta’s sin because “her will to live, that died on the day Greta became a killer.” She was recruited to pick through the new recruits and choose who lived or died. They threatened to kill all the children if she didn’t do it, so she agreed. So, she was forced into a lot of sin. One argument in the book is that if you’re forced, it’s not sin. And she really was. The option of doing this or being responsible for children’s deaths isn’t really a choice. You won’t feel good about either. But that’s not the point, she considered each life she was responsible for ending as sin, so she had a lot to work off once she died.
War and Death have a battle, Pez brings pestilence, and eventually, John’s house is burned to the ground along with thousands of bugs. John’s mother and brother are both safe, but the vessel is lost. Still, Death reassures John that “Nobody died today.”
Henreich and Williams climb through the snow to a frozen cave for the next soul they need to free. This is a really cool twist and I’m not going to give a lot away past this point. We learn about Henreich’s past and who turned him into a Sadeiest and how. It’s touching and thought-provoking and too great for me to spell it out. You have to read it.
We then go back to Death and John and, again, I’m not going to spoil how this thread ends either. What I will say is that it was exciting and really kept me hooked.
The ending of both stories ties things up in a really nice way and it’s just very well written.
My final thoughts:
I struggle with books that have a ton of characters and unclear timeframes sometimes. This book has both. Even while re-reading it to write this review, it was sometimes unclear ‘when this part was happening’, but it doesn’t matter. The timeline is fluid and the stories are what matters. I latched onto Williams and Henreich hard and, in my opinion, their relationship was the best part of the book. They weren’t friends, but they almost became them. And the ending (or was it the beginning) of their relationship, was just…great.
That’s not to say John and Death weren’t also great. The way Death is a character in this story but not in the tired, always-the-same-way, I feel like death is often in stories was refreshing.
Pez, a freaking ant, was interesting to read about and that is a true testament to Spencer’s writing. Greta was wonderful. I mean, I’m very happy I read this book and I can honestly say I recommend it. You should read it. Now. Add it to your list, maybe shuffle it to the top.
This book is dark as hell, but honestly, it’s thought-provoking and just well written. Kudos to Mr. Austrian Spencer. This book is just excellent.
