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Review: Finding Audrey

Finding Audrey Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had originally been planning on reading this waaaaaay back in August when it was the Booksplosion book of the month. I went to my local library’s Overdrive and looked up the audiobook of Finding Audrey, and signed up to reserve it. There was only six people ahead of me in the line so I hoped it would be my turn by the end of the month. Well, it’s been nearly three months now, and I finally got notified two days ago that it was my turn. I listened to this while doing art and it obviously only took me two days SO WHAT THE HECK WERE THE OTHER SIX PEOPLE DOING!? The max time to keep the audiobook is 20 days I feel like everyone just used it up ‘cause they could. It’s only a six and a half hour audiobook for Christ’s sake. Sorry for the rant.

So! Finding Audrey! An interesting read. This is a pretty intimate look into a girl who lives with extreme social anxiety among other things, which made me slightly worried because my brain likes to adopt things like this and apply them to me. Like, for the past month my mom’s been whining about her forearm hurting, and mine started hurting as well. I’ve started stuttering just because I read about some people discussing their stutters on a reddit thread. Tokyo Ghoul √A literally started ruining my life and making me feel incredibly stressed 24/7 until I finally watched the finale and got it over with. I already have social anxiety myself, so I obviously didn’t want this book to make it any worse, but I had waited months for this book so there was no backing out. I’m feeling fine so that ended up not being a problem.

The story itself was good. It’s about Audrey who; wait I just noticed we never actually find out what even happened to her to mess her up so bad. I don’t know if that was a spoiler. (view spoiler) Anyway, SOMETHING happened and it ROYALLY (getitcausethey’rebritish) messed her up. Like, so messed up that she can’t even look at people when she’s wearing shades. It’s about her dealing with that, but a major subplot was also about her family relations. Like her bat-shit crazy mother and videogame-playing brother. Pretty good stuff.

On the other hand, this book was a prime example of something I hate reading in fiction. Girl likes boy, but girl is so fucking shy that not only does she never talk to him, but she actually runs away from and rejects him. Instead of taking what seems to be an obvious hint, the boy actually chases after the girl until she becomes more comfortable and they get together. I’ve read this bullshit so often in fiction that I actually started believing in it. Like I mentioned, I have social anxiety and thus whenever I see someone attractive I find it incredibly hard to make eye contact or even talk to them. Even when I notice them taking an interest and they keep looking at me, I just can’t help but immediately avert my eyes whenever we make eye contact. They take the hint, and stop. Then I’m sad that they stopped because of these false expectations books have taught me. Why don’t they chase after me like the noble men of fiction? Because they’re actual normal human beings, that’s why.

But yeah, overall I had a good time listening to this. I don’t even know how to rate it though. Three stars seems too mediocre but four stars seems too much but also slightly appropriate at the same time. And I just don’t like the look of 3.5 stars for this book. How about… 3.74 stars out of five. Yes.

Read my reading notes at the bottom of this review for some extra little thoughts.

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