Review: Finding Audrey

Title: Finding Audrey

Author: Sophie Kinsella 

Publisher: Delacorte Books

Publication Date: June 9 2015  

Source: Soft cover Arc 

Available in Hardcover Here

An anxiety disorder disrupts fourteen-year-old Audrey’s daily life. She has been making slow but steady progress with Dr. Sarah, but when Audrey meets Linus, her brother’s gaming teammate, she is energized. She connects with him. Audrey can talk through her fears with Linus in a way she’s never been able to do with anyone before. As their friendship deepens and her recovery gains momentum, a sweet romantic connection develops, one that helps not just Audrey but also her entire family.

Edit: I’ve decided to include this review in Jera’s Jamboree Talk of the Town meme. So if you’ve found your way here through that link, welcome and I hope you enjoy the blog.

     I don’t think there are enough wonderful things I can say about this book. The characters were all super fleshed out and really likable. Audrey was an awesome MC probably one of my favorites in a long time. I think it was really smart for Sophie to give us the inside look at Audrey considering this is a book that deals with mental illness. I really enjoyed reading along while Audrey worked on breaking through her anxiety. I know a lot of readers are fearful that it’s all because of Linus but I think everyone that Audrey had in her life played a helping hand in her recovery. Plus when you deal with something as tough as anxiety you have to want to recover for yourself. I found myself rooting for Audrey and her whole family. I really loved her mom she was hysterical and wanted nothing but good for her family even if she went about it in all the wrong ways. Her brother Frank was a riot and definitely way more multi-layered than I expected. I definitely give the character development 5 stars!!! 

     The writing was fun and very descriptive. I loved that we weren’t told what or how a character acted but instead we were shown. There’s a part where Audrey talks about Linus’ smile that I just love that she compares it to a slice of an orange. For me it paints such a unique picture of what his smile must look like. And there’s an amazing part where Audrey talks about her recovery I love it so much I just have to share it here:

“Life is all about climbing up, slipping down, and picking yourself up again. And it doesn’t matter if you slip down. As long as you’re kind of heading more or less upwards. That’s all you can hope for. More or less upward.”

Even for someone who doesn’t have a mental illness I think this is something we all hope for. So for this part I gotta give another 5 stars!!

Theme wise this book looks at a lot of things, mental illness, family dynamics, bullying, first romance. I would like to see more books deal with mental wellness I think it’s such an important topic to look at and to help break down the stigma of mental illness. I appreciated that the delicate topic was handled so gracefully and realistically. I love the way Kinsella portrayed Audrey’s family and how they really enjoyed being with one another. I think so many teens feel it’s uncool to have fun with your family but it certainly doesn’t have to be (although I guess we can’t all have cool families like Audrey). For thematic purposes I would give Audrey 5 stars!!

There wasn’t much of a world to build since this is a pretty standard fiction read with no fantasy element. Much of the book takes places in Audrey’s house and I think Sophie does a good job laying out how the house is set up and where Audrey goes (she even has her own room apart from her bedroom that she spends time in.)

I give this book 5 stars!!I think there’s a lot you can get out of this book and I definitely think even if Audrey herself isn’t your favorite character there’s a rather large cast and your bound to favor one of them. This is Sophie’s first foray into YA and I definitely hope she does some more titles. I will certainly be reading them.

Do you know any titles that deal with mental illness in a positive portrayal? Have you read any other Sophie Kinsella titles?

Til my next review

Xoxo,

Mary