Hey there, Germ readers, and welcome to our first check-in for Sophie Kinsella’s Finding Audrey.

We’re going to be discussing pages 1–149.

 

Here are our discussion questions:

1) Even though Audrey is dealing with severe anxiety that takes over her life, do you find her character to be relatable? Why or why not?

2) Throughout the story we are given little “transcripts” of Audrey’s makeshift documentary. Do you feel that these add to or take away from the story itself?

 

My answers:

1) I, personally, also deal with anxiety, though not to the degree of Audrey; and, so, in many ways, I do find her character very relatable. I totally understand being anxious and getting that sick feeling about new people and places and being completely content in staying at home all day. However, we do differ greatly in family life in that hers is at a level of dysfunction that I could hardly imagine. That being said, I still do understand when family becomes frustrating and/or irritating, and I can truly relate, in most respects, to Audrey’s reactions.

I’m interested to know how those who don’t deal with anxiety feel about Audrey. I wonder if there is still some reliability, or if you would approach her with a certain curiosity relating more to Linus in that way.

2) I think it’s a little risky to “interrupt” the story with the transcripts. There’s a lot of opportunity for it to be clunky and disruptive and maybe even a little tedious. However, I find that Kinsella uses these breaks perfectly. It adds a lot of humor to the story in catching glimpses of the other characters as they might not want to be seen (right now, I cannot get enough of the dad trying to relive his high school garage band glory days). And, overall, I think it’s been a great way for us to see some progress in Audrey, just as Dr. Sarah intended when she made the assignment. Honestly, I start getting pretty excited when I see the different typeface as I turn the page.

 

That’s all for this check-in. We’ll be meeting again on August 31st, having read through the end, and we’ll have a couple more questions to discuss.