Well, Germ readers, we have come to our final check-in of the summer.
We’ve finished Sophie Kinsella’s Finding Audrey, and it’s time to discuss pages 152 through the end.
Here are our discussion questions:
1) How do you feel about the way Audrey’s parents handled the situation with Izzy?
2) Do you wish that Kinsella had actually described the situation that spurred Audrey’s anxiety? Or were you fine with it not being fleshed out?
My answers:
1) I sympathize with Audrey’s parents, really. I can’t even fully grasp where they’re coming from because I have no real clue as to what it’s like to be a parent. But, for being someone’s kid for the past couple decades, I was a little upset that they didn’t bother to talk to Audrey about the whole situation.
It seemed pretty obvious that Audrey had overheard their conversation, and their attempts at covering it up were pretty pathetic, to be honest. Were I in that situation, I would like to think that my parents would sit me down and explain it to me to include their reservations about it all. While that may not at all have stopped Audrey’s next moves, I still felt uneasy about the secrecy and felt that really fed into what she did.
2) Not going to lie, a part of me is still so curious as to what happened. I mean, having gone through high school and the drama that comes with it, there are certain things I feel I can assume without knowing the full story. But I feel as though not knowing goes really well with the whole narrative of the book.
Audrey’s voice is written very conversationally, as though she is telling us an amusing story from her past. While reading, I kept thinking that if I knew her in real life, I would never outright ask what happened. I would wait to see if she was willing to tell me. To just ask about such a personal thing — a negative personal thing at that — seems like overstepping boundaries and trust, so it felt right to wait for her to give in; and, even when she didn’t, I never felt like that was missing from the story. It was never about what happened; it was all about her recovery.
So, that’s a wrap for Finding Audrey and GERMreads! I’ve had a ton of fun reading with you all this summer, and I hope you did too.
Until next time, happy reading!