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.
Much more importantly than this being her first voyage into young adult literature, this is Sophie Kinsella's first step into something more than the fun and flirty but relatively shallow books she's previously published.
Audrey is not your typical Kinsella character. She doesn't care about shopping or appearances and she has no issues with her credit card bills. However, she's just as powerful. And she still made me laugh quite a bit.
This wasn't just about Audrey though; instead, it was more about the entire family, a less than cohesive unit. I felt almost as invested in Frank, Audrey's older brother, as I did her, and I was in love with her four-year-old brother Felix. And her dad was hilarious.
I adored how she initially is able to communicate with someone she's not comfortable with through writing notes. A lot of people could relate to this and though I haven't suffered from anxiety disorder I think this could be inspiring in a way.
The way she began thinking about other people was very touching. Her mother had given up a lot to take care of her and it was fascinating to see how Audrey reacted when she realized that she may have been a little wrapped up in herself.
I'm forever curious as to what happened. But I'll survive.
This wasn't necessarily as fun of a read as I expected it to be, but it made up for this in tackling things that actually matter.
5
