Review: Finding Audrey
Audrey suffers from an anxiety disorder brought on by an unnamed incident. She wears dark glasses all the time and only leaves the house for her therapy sessions. Progress is slow until Linus, a friend of her brother’s, comes into her life.
Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella is the author’s first foray in the Young Adult world so I had high expectations going into the book. Maybe too high because I liked the book a great deal, but I didn’t love it.
The story is told from Audrey’s perspective and I think many teens will relate to her and her anxiety. Sure, it seemed a little drama-laden at times but I think that’s fairly normal – our own anxieties make perfect sense while those of others don’t. I really liked the way Audrey’s family handled her situation – they were patient, kind, and respectful and found help for her. Audrey’s mother was a bit over the top at times but that didn’t bother me because I think that’s the way many teens see their parents. There’s a cute subplot with Audrey’s mother and her battle with Audrey’s brother over the amount of time he spends in front of the computer.
I found the book to be a light, quick read but I did have one issue with it and that was Linus. He was a nice young man but I couldn’t understand his motivation for helping Audrey. It’s hard to say too much more without spoiling the story but the ending was pretty unrealistic and that bothered me – I hope it doesn’t give anyone suffering from anxiety unreasonable expectations.
Overall, I thought Finding Audrey was light, fun, and just a little bit quirky. I hope Kinsella has plans to write more YA books.
I will link this up to Booking Mama’s Saturday feature, Kid Konnection. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.
Review copy provided by Penguin Random House. I am an Indiebound Affliate.
Sounds like she was successful in making the jump to YA!
I really liked this book. I didn’t think much I guess about why Linus was so nice – maybe I just want there to be Linuses out there!
I always loved her grown up books but then I got kind of tired of them….not sure I would want to try this one…
Maybe we’re supposed to assume Linus’ motivation is romantic?
As a teacher, I’ve seen a HUGE jump in kids with real anxiety issues in the last 20 years and am always interested to determine origins when possible. I’ve had anxieties since childhood, but since it was PC then I just dealt with it.
I plan to read this.
I don’t read many YA books, but I am always curious when a writer of adult books takes this journey….I think I’ll wait a while on this one. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve thought about reading this but haven’t had time to get to it. Sorry you didn’t love it as much as you wanted. I’ve done that before when I was super excited to read a book.
This is one author that I’ve heard of but never read. Not sure why. Thanks for weighing in on this book.
I do like Kinsella so…
This sounds interesting, anxiety is an issue for many teens and adults. Hopefully, it’s not too unrealistic. I had that issue with Fault in my stars which most people loved.
This will be my first Kinsella so afterwards I’ll have to dive into her adult titles. I like that this book takes on anxiety and I hope the book doesn’t make this an easy fix issue. You make me more intrigued about this one!
I really enjoyed this one as well. And like you, I wasn’t too keen on the character of Linus. All in all, I was excited to read Kinsella’s latest book and really do hope she continues with the YA genre – I think she did a great job!
I used to enjoy Sophie Kinsella’s books a lot and I probably still do, but I haven’t been reading them much lately because they seem to have very similar plot progressions. I am a little nervous about this one being a YA title but I would like to give it a try.
I’ve enjoyed the few Kinsella books I have read–it’s been a while since then. I have a couple of her books sitting unread on my TBR shelf still. I am not sure about reading a YA title by her.
I didn’t realize this was YA – I do like her adult books but am not a huge YA fan overall so am not sure if this one is for me.
Sorry to hear this one didn’t live up to your expectations. After not loving the last Shopaholic book, I’m not sure if I want to read it or not.
I have this one sitting here. Not sure if I should read it now!