Book Review on Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

This was my first dalliance with the Young Adult novels of today. I had seen this book being flashed excitedly by bookstagrammers and had therefore decided on giving it a read to judge for myself what the fans seem to like.

I hadn’t read any of Sophie Kinsella’s previous works. In fact, I was completely unaware of her as a writer. I assumed that she was a young author and this was perhaps her first book. On opening this gloriously bright covered copy of the book, I found out that Kinsella had previously written a series of novels about the life of a shopaholic. Meaning, she was a writer of some standing among the pop readers of today.

Coming to the book, it was an easy read. And I don’t mean that as a complement. The story was not challenging in its concept, nor was it spectacularly written. The writing style was plain and painfully repetitive whenever the author could not express the complexities of teenage emotions. Some pop readers like this style of writing because it is easy to comprehend. It is the kind of book which you can easily multi-task with. I imagine one can even keep up a riveting conversation while having the audio-book version of this novel playing in the background. The protagonist, Audrey suffers from social anxiety and the story revolves around her family life while she is recovering from an episode at school. Her mother is described as paranoid and easily influenced by the print media. She fears that technology will make her children unhealthy and shorten their life spans. The father’s presence in the story is only of relevance when he is present with the mother. Otherwise, he is mostly non-existent. The family has three kids; the elder teen Audrey, her brother Frank and their much younger baby brother. In the most predictable manner of plots, Audrey’s life at home changes when a boy enters her life. The knight in shining armor here is Linus, Frank’s friend and gaming partner.

The best portrayed character, in my opinion, is Frank. His characteristics and appearance in the plot draws the interest of the reader and you wish he had a story of his own that you could delve into. At times, one desperately desires to reach across to Audrey and tell her that her fears, excitement and anxiousness around Linus are completely normal and felt by almost every teen; the butterfly feeling. Perhaps her condition prevented her from differentiating good excitement from actual danger. But could her therapist have been blind to these obvious feelings too? There was no clear message on the author’s take on social anxiety. We get to see how Audrey’s family, friends and neighbours treat her and that’s about it. The plot moves through Audrey’s transition with respect to her relationship with Linus. And one wonders if that is all it takes to feel normal and accepted in society: a boyfriend.

I would have loved reading about Audrey finding herself instead of Audrey finding a boyfriend. That would have been the kind of message that needs to be sent out to young teenagers who actually read and follow this genre. The fact that it didn’t only goes to show why our society and teen culture is as it is. Kinsella had started out by developing a character that had a lot of potential. But Audrey remained unfound at the hands of her own creator.