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.