Enjoy For Free Finding Audrey Articulated By Sophie Kinsella Available As Manuscript

"The trouble is, depression doesn't come with handy symptoms like spots and a temperature, so you don't realize it at first, You keep saying "I'm fine" to people when you're not fine, You think you should be fine, You keep saying to yourself: "Why aren't I fine"

This is going to be one longass review, everyone,

Let me just preface this by saying one reason why I love this book so much is because of how personal the topic is to me.
Some of this review will be a rambley description of my experiences with anxiety which I will put in a spoiler tag at the very end.


"To put you out of your misery, here's the full diagnosis: Social Anxiety Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, and Depressive Episodes.

Episodes. Like depression is a sitcom with a fun punch line each time, Or a TV box set loaded with cliffhangers, The only cliffhanger in my life is "Will I ever get rid of this shit" and believe me, it gets pretty monotonous.


Finding Audrey is a book that I didn't expect to love as much as I did, I was expecting a typical mental illness contemporary, where the MC has something "wrong" with them, meets some love interest, is miraculously cured, and then goes to makeout or have sex, or whatever the fuck with their instalover.
This was nothing like that, This was a humourous, hardhitting story about the realities of living with a mental illness, Not the romanticized, bullshit versions authors keep putting out,



Can we just take a moment to appreciate the accurate portrayal of anxiety and mental illness here Like:

"Eye contact is a big deal.
It's the biggest deal. Just the thought makes me sick, right down to my core,
I know in my rational head that that eyes are not frightening, They're tiny little harmless blobs of jelly, They're, like, a minuscule fraction of our whole body area, We all have them. So why should they bother me But I've had a lot of time to think about this, and if you ask me, most people underestimate eyes.
For a start, they're powerful, . . They're like vortexes, too. They're infinite. You look someone straight in the eye and your whole soul can be sucked out in a nanosecond, That's what it feels like, Other people's eyes are limitless and that's what scares me, "

And:

"It's all my fault, my stupid, stupid fault, . .
My thoughts are speeding up and my pace is speeding up too, and I'm pulling at my arms, pulling at the flesh of my forearms, trying to.
. . I don't know. . I don't understand it. I glance in the mirror and flinch at my own wild stare, I can feel a weird sparking all over my body, like I'm more alive than I should be, like my body is overloaded with life force.
Can you have too much life stuffed into one body Because that's what this feels like, And everything's too fast. My heart, my thoughts, my feet, my clawing arms, . . "



I applaud you, Sophie Kinsella,

"I'll do anything, I'll stack the dishwasher. I'll phone Grandma every night, I'll " He casts wildly about. "I'll read to deaf people, "
Read to deaf people Can he actually hear what he's saying"



Even though this book deals with such a heavy topic, it is still incredibly funny.
I'm a fairly easy person to make laugh, so I don't know how credible my word is, but I found this book nothing short of hilarious.




"Parents have this way of asking really dumb, obvious questions,
Are you going out in that skirt
No, I'm planning to take it off as soon as I get out of the front door.

Do you think that's a good idea
No, I think it's a terrible idea, that's why I'm doing it,
Are you listening to me
Your voice is a hundred decibels, I can hardly avoid it, "

Audrey's family is another thing I loved, Her antivideo game mom, her lovably naive little brother, her clueless father, and her video game obsessed brother were absolutely wonderful, Not only in their endless support of Audrey, but in their dynamic, They seemed like a real family, Hell, they kind of seemed like my family, and in more ways than one,

"I've gone up a level, That's the only way I can describe it, Yes, I've had one bad episode, but I didn't sink quite as low, Things weren't quite as dark, "

Linus and Audrey fangirls They're so fucking cute, I loved how Linus wasn't the cureall endall to Audrey's anxiety, Sure, he helped a bit, but meeting him didn't "save her life, " She helped herself, with the aid of her family and therapist, Even in the end, Audrey's notfine, and that's okay, No one's fine, really, if you think about it, After all, "I'm not okay, you're not okay, and that's okay, " Elisabeth KublerRoss

"I guess Mum was right about the jagged graphs thing, We're all on one. Even Frank. Even Mum. Even Felix. I think what I've realized is, life is all about climbing up, slipping down, and picking yourself up again, And it doesn't matter if you slip down, As long as you're kind of heading more or less upwards, That's all that you can hope for, More or less upwards. "

This could possibly be very soppy and cliche, but what else would you expect from me

My experience with anxiety:

This is probably the easiest and hardest thing I've ever had to write.
Easy, I know exactly what I want to write, Hard, because what I want to write involves sharing a very personal part of my life with hundreds of strangers on the Internet, So. Here goes nothing:

When I was very little, I was one of the shyest kids out there, I wouldn't talk much to new people, I was the kid sitting quietly on the swings, book in hand, while the other kids my age ran around the playground, screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs.
It wasn't until I started Preschool that I was able to break out of my shell, From that day on, I was the one of the loud kids, I was friends with everyone, I preformed in my city's theatre program, I dreamed of one day becoming a singer and auditioning for America's Got Talent, I wanted to do everything, see everything,

But despite all of that, I was a very anxious kid, Overlyanxious. No one really noticed then I didn't even notice myself, But I can remember all of my irrational fears, how

long it would take me to calm down once I was scared, and how the smallest, most insignificant things would affect me greatly.


This never really became a problem until I was, Things happened to me. Not horrid, awful things, but things that impacted me enough to make me revert back to my old ways, My grandpa died. My dad moved out. My grades started slipping. People that I thought were my friends quickly turned on me,

I remember my first panic attack like most would remember their first kiss, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I couldn't speak, All I could do was sit there, shaking, as tears streamed down my face, and my heart pounded in my ears, and my breath came in shallow gasps.
I didn't know what was happening to me, I though I was dying, But, then again, every time I felt even remotely under the weather, I thought I was dying,

Somehow, it passed, I tried to move on, but I couldn't get that day out of my mind,

Slowly, after a while, I began to experience these things more often, I retreated from the world, and I had started to go out less and less, I developed a fear of cameras, airplanes, social media, spiders, germs, the ocean, people you name a fear, and chances are, I probably had it.
I started to cover all of my cameras with tape, I couldn't look people in the eyes when I spoke to them, I didn't leave the house for weeks, sometimes months on end, Panic attacks became a regular thing, and it wasn't uncommon for me to have one once, twice, maybe even three times a week, I was seeing a therapist, but that wasn't doing much, I didn't want to get better, I wanted to hide. Sometimes, on very bad days, I thought the world would be better off without me,

During all of this, reading was my only solace, Books weren't judgmental. Books didn't turn on you, They contained whole worlds for me to run to,

I continued living like this for years, until only recently when I stumbled upon this little site called Goodreads,

A social media platform for people who loved books, This sounded like an actual paradise to me, I had to join. The only problem was, that involved starting an account, A social media account, Something I had avoided like the plague for years, Just the thought made my heart beat faster, and my breath catch,

But I was tired of living like this, scared of everything, and everyone, I clicked "signup. " At first, I vowed to only use my account to find new books, I wouldn't comment anything, I wouldn't follow anyone, And I sure as hell wasn't going to friend anyone,

That worked for maybe two weeks, One day, out of the blue, I got two friend requests, I was so taken aback, I shut off my laptop, and had a minipanic attack in the corner of my room, But my therapist was always telling me to take small risks, and to broaden my horizons, So I accepted the friend requests, I started commenting things. I started reviewing books.

This progress wasn't just limited to my online life, I started going out more, I started talking to new people, I had some bad episodes, yes, and I had some minor setbacks, but I wasn't going to let that stop me,

Just recently, I uncovered my phone's back camera, Then the front camera. And holy shit, did it scare me, But it thrilled me, too, I did it. I looked a camera in the eye and said, "I'm not afraid of you, "

Even now, with all the progress I've made, I'm not fully cured, I still have trouble maintaining eye contact, My laptop camera is still covered, I still haven't really gone "out" out, A week ago, I had one of the worst panic attacks I've had in months, But afterwards, I didn't feel so bad, I got back up. I'm on a jagged graph myself, just like Audrey,

I owe a lot to the first two people who friend requested me I can't even remember their names, and honestly, I feel terrible about it.
Even though they didn't know it, they gave me that little push I needed to start again,

If any of you are in the same, or similar boat as me, do not be afraid to message me, I know it's scary talking to a complete stranger about your problems, But it may make you feel better, It did for me. .