I am back with another book review! This week, I am reviewing Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella. This is her first YA novel, after a plethora of adult novels. Thanks so much to Penguin Random House for providing me this book to review! All opinions are my own.
As always, let's start with the synopsis!
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shopaholic series comes a terrific blend of comedy, romance, and psychological recovery in a contemporary YA novel sure to inspire and entertain.
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.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book! I've never read a Sophie Kinsella book before and I wasn't sure what to expect. I've heard great things about her writing, so I was going into this book with fairly high expectations.
This book was the perfect mix of light and fluffy, mental illness and first love. This was more of a lighter read, if you are looking for a book that focuses more on mental illness and anxiety, I wouldn't really recommend this one. It deals with it well, it just isn't the best portrayal of mental illness. Perhaps if you are looking for a lighter book on mental illness, not the usual dark and bleak book about depression and suicide.
If you are looking for a cute, funny, summer read that is a little bit deeper than the average romance, I would recommend this book.
My only complaints are that I had a hard time visualizing how old Audrey was, she's 14, but I thought going in she was closer to 16-17 and was confused on why she sounded younger. I also felt like the cause of her anxiety and depressive episodes were just glossed over. There's no real definitive reason explained about what happened. We get a general "something happened here and these people were involved" but its nothing more than that.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I ended up giving it 4/5 stars, because of the few issues I had with it.