I found Audrey~ A review of Sophie Kinsella's Finding Audrey

Read in 3 days

Welcome to the first Frances Galea book review. When I post reviews I thought it might be helpful to include how long the book took me to read as well as a rating system ranging from:

• Hot: Couldn’t put it down

• Warm: Easy read

• Cold: Forgot I was reading it

Today I’ll be reviewing Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella. Before I begin I must admit 2020 was the year I was introduced to Sophie Kinsella by my friend Brook who raved about her books. Finally I went to the library and picked up a few to sample.

The common factor with Kinsella’s books, that I’ve discovered so far, is her characters are always exchanging something. In Surprise Me a married couple challenge each other to do different and exciting things to spice things up, I Owe You One is about Fixie and a stranger who end up writing favours to each other on a disposable coffee cup that never seems to be thrown away and I’ve Got Your Number which is a hilarious tale of Poppy who finds a strangers phone in a bin but the issue is he wants the phone back.

You could say I’ve been on a Kinsella pilgrimage. I’ve actually got two more sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to crack open the covers.

Ok so now to my actual review.

Finding Audrey is young adult fiction about Audrey, a 14 year old who is stuck inside her house behind dark sunglasses. She doesn’t attend school and she hides from everyone who aren’t her safe people. She is a middle child with an older brother, Frank, and her younger brother, Felix. Do people still call their son Frank these days? Frank means free man and Audrey’s brother is anything but free. He is constantly being micromanaged by his mum and yet he seems to be able find creative ways to get what he wants.

We don’t exactly know what happened to Audrey but know that whatever it was has caused her social anxiety. We get snippets of information from her inner dialogue and what we overhear from her family. She freaks out at the idea of eye contact and feels safest in a dark room watching TV. This is all until Linus comes into the picture and challenges all the safety nets she has put in place for herself.

What makes Finding Audrey unique is that there are no chapters. The novel is written in three different ways; parts directly from Audrey’s perspective, an exchange of notes between Audrey and Linus and transcripts of a documentary she is filming for her therapist. Normally I don’t like reading transcripts which read like a script. There is dialogue as well as descriptions of where the characters are in the scene. This is what turned me off reading the Cursed Child by JK Rowling. However Kinsella has done it in bite size chunks. The transcripts don’t go for more than a few pages and I felt like I was able to see Audrey through her camera. It's rare reading in first person POV (Point of View) to see your protagonists unless they are observing their appearance in a mirror.

The way Audrey thinks is the same way I do. I suffer from anxiety and understand the feeling of wanting to run away in different social situations. Her irrational thoughts are very similar to my own. One minute you are having a nice conversation and the next you feel inadequate and that everyone is judging you. The truth is no one is. They are too consumed with their own stuff to worry about you. And this is why I love the relationship between Audrey and her therapist Dr Sarah. Dr Sarah only exists in the confines of her office walls very much like my own therapist. Sometimes I wonder if my therapist is a figment of my imagination because no one else has ever met her. But then hundreds of dollars leave my account after each visit so she must be real or I’ve crafted a very complex lie for myself.

Dr Sarah is down to earth and a realist. When Audrey is going on about what she thinks others are thinking about her she asks Audrey if she can read people’s minds and if she has a super power she should know about. She cuts Audrey’s self deprecating thoughts at the knees.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I felt the climax of the story of Audrey going missing a little lacklustre. Prior to her going missing I wanted her thoughts and emotions to go into overdrive. I wasn’t really worried for her. She went out for a walk during the night and the next scene was via the transcript. Frank had turned on the camera and was filming her parents stressed reactions. During the filming it is revealed that Audrey has been found in the park, asleep. In hindsight I think I wished she’d run away. Run away from her problems because she didn’t know how to solve them rather than be so tired she fell asleep. See what I mean by lacklustre. I didn’t feel like she had gone off a cliff. It had so much potential and fell flat.

As a whole I did enjoy the story. The characters felt real and Audrey relatable. I love to read it again and I hope that Kinsella ventures into the teen genre more often.

HOT! Couldn’t Put it Down