Finding Audrey - Sophie Kinsella (Review)

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Romance, Contemporary 
Publication date:  June 9th 2015
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Format: audiobook, 6 hours, 36 minutes
How I got it: My public library
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 4/5 
Audrey can't leave the house. she can't even take off her dark glasses inside the house.

Then her brother's friend Linus stumbles into her life. With his friendly, orange-slice smile and his funny notes, he starts to entice Audrey out again - well, Starbucks is a start. And with Linus at her side, Audrey feels like she can do the things she'd thought were too scary. Suddenly, finding her way back to the real world seems achievable.

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My thoughts:

This book follows Audrey who had a breakdown in the recent past due to an unfortunate event.  Audrey has been battling a sever anxiety disorder, which doesn’t allow her to do much or even take off her sunglasses when speaking to her family.

Audrey is a unique character in YA fiction.  The author does a great job developing Audrey into a teenager suffering from severe anxiety.  I also think it is important to keep in mind teenager when reading this book.  We are brought into the story more towards the middle of her anxiety disorder and she does seem to be making small strides with her therapist.  I love that we get to hear all about her interactions with her therapist as well as her family and what steps she is taking to recover. 

Another major character in the book is Linus who is Audrey’s brothers friend.  I love that Linus tries hard to approach Audrey while also giving her space.  Linus might not fully understand what Audrey is going through in the beginning, but he becomes a pivotal part of her recovery.  I also loved the Linus never gave us and kept with Audrey, he was a strong character in this book and a swoon worthy book boyfriend.  

I loved the side story in this book with Audrey’s mother and brother.  Audrey’s mom got into her mind that computer games where destroying her brother’s life and she tried everything to stop him from playing games.   I feel this added to the book, although a lighter issue it helped bring in a little comedy to a tough subject as well as show families might have multiple issues going on at one time.

This book is short in nature, but the author keeps the story moving along nicely.  I felt complete when I was done reading this book and felt the ending summed everything up.  I enjoyed that I got a glimpse into what it is like to suffer from anxiety as well as hope for a recovery.  I also loved the importance of having a strong supporting base that comes along with recovery and that this isn’t something that can easily be solved with just a pill.

I can’t think of one thing that I didn’t enjoy in this book, but the reason I am not giving it 5 stars is that I don’t think I would read it again.  It was a powerful book that touched a lot on living with an anxiety disorder, which you typically don’t see, but after finishing it I couldn’t imagine listening again.

I would suggest listening to the audio version of this book.  The narrator comes across perfectly for Audrey I found it was easy to listen to her narrate and imagine what was going on while listening to the book.  This is a quick listen so it would be perfect for a weekend. 

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About the Author

Madeleine Wickham (born 12 December 1969) is a bestselling British author under her pseudonym, Sophie Kinsella. Educated at New College, Oxford, she worked as a financial journalist before turning to fiction. She is best known for writing a popular series of chick-lit novels. The Shopaholic novels series focuses on the misadventures of Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist who cannot manage her own finances. The books follows her life from when her credit card debt first become overwhelming ("The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic") to the latest book on being married and having a child ("Shopaholic & Baby"). Throughout the entire series, her obsession with shopping and the complications that imparts on her life are central themes.

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