Age: 24
female
Sadie Elizabeth Sink (born April 16, 2002) is an American actress. She began her acting career in theatre, playing the title role in the musical Annie (2012–14) and young Elizabeth II in the historical play The Audience (2015) on Broadway. In 2016, she made her film debut in the biographical sports drama Chuck. Sink had her breakthrough portraying Max Mayfield in the Netflix science fiction series Stranger Things (2017–2025) and received critical acclaim for her performance in its fourth season. In 2021, she appeared in the horror film trilogy Fear Street and played the lead role in Taylor Swift's short film All Too Well. She then starred in Darren Aronofsky's psychological drama The Whale (2022), for which she received a Critics' Choice Movie Award nomination. Sink returned to Broadway in 2025, starring in the play John Proctor Is the Villain and earning a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play; the second youngest woman to achieve such.
When April and Leo’s house burns in the middle of the night, they escape with their two young children and the quiet knowledge that the fire is not the only thing threatening their family. They retreat to April’s childhood home in Dallas, where her spirited parents and siblings provide both comfort and complication. As the family reckons with the aftermath—grief, guilt, logistics, and memories scorched and intact—the fire exposes the cracks already forming in April and Leo’s marriage. The novel unfolds in alternating perspectives: from April, who feels the crushing weight of motherhood, marriage, and self-blame; from Leo, a high school history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood; from Deb, April’s generous and no-nonsense mother who has to contend with her husband’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis; and from flashbacks that trace April and Leo’s relationship from its earliest days of connection to the devastating decisions that led them here. A family saga suffused with humor, longing, and heartbreak, The Burning Side is about what we inherit and what we choose, about forgiveness and the ache of being known. It is, above all, about the meaning of home and the costs of long love.
