The Lizard Brain
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Summary of Finding Audrey
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.
Summary from goodreads
Review
I love Sophie Kinsella's books. They're hilarious but can also cover some more serious topics as well. Finding Audrey is the first of Sophie Kinsella's young adult books that I've read. As always, Kinsella's characters and humor make for an entertaining read.Audrey's family is so relatable and the conversations between Audrey's parents and her brother Frank sound exactly like real conversations. I chuckled as I read about Audrey's mom wanting to ban her son from all screens because he spends too much time playing computer games. She goes so far as to say the whole family should have a game night together rather than watch TV. Audrey's dad then asks his wife, "What about Downton Abbey? Or The Killing?" To which Audrey's mom replies, "Oh, well Downton Abbey is a good show. We can still watch what we want", completely ignoring how hypocritical she seems to her son.
While Kinsella's characters are hilarious, she also still manages to cover some serious topics as well. In Finding Audrey, through the main character, I learned a bit more of what it might be like for a person to live with anxiety. Audrey, the main character, explains that the amygdala (or "my lizard brain" as Audrey likes to call it) processes normal social situations as something to be terrified of, rather than just shy. I found it interesting that I read this book at exactly the right time. I have a student this year who is dealing with some extreme anxiety, and reading Audrey's thoughts has helped give me a glimpse of what might be happening inside my student's mind.
Though I don't have serious anxiety, I do think the romance develops too quickly. I find it hard to believe that a character with severe anxiety would become comfortable that quickly with someone she just met. The sped up romance led me to give Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella 4 out of 5 stars, though I did I enjoy reading it a great deal.
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