Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway
Buy Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: An enjoyable teen novel about the trials and tribulations of girls and boys, but also an interesting exploration of celebrity. The central character loves words, which is always a bonus.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 320	Date: July 2008
Publisher: Hodder
ISBN: 159514191X
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Audrey is buzzing along nicely in her Los Angeles life, quite well for an angsty teenager in fact. She has an awesome best friend, her parents are fairly right-on, her music is always loud, and her fatterbelly pet cat always raises a smile. If it weren't for Evan, her self-obsessed musician boyfriend, Audrey's life would be just peachy. So, never one to settle for second best, Audrey dumps Evan. But to her horror, at his band's gig a few days later, Evan unveils his new song. It's called Audrey, Wait! and it's all about her.

And before she knows it, Audrey, Wait! has become a transatlantic hit. Her picture is plastered all over the gossip magazines, she's being abused by the band's fans on the internet, and paparazzi are following her wherever she goes.

I really didn't expect to like Audrey, Wait!. I thought it was going to pan out to be another glittery, girly, teen diary-style novel - slight, superficial, and ultimately pointless. But not so! Audrey is smart and snazzy, and not in the least bit ditzy and sparkly. In fact, she's healthily snobbish toward the ditzy and sparkly groupies she comes across in the course of her dreadful fifteen minutes of fame. But, wit and originality aside, Audrey is just as self-centred as many of her peers, including the ditzy groupies, and her unwelcome celebrity teaches her this eventually. It's the same journey every teenager makes, but poor Audrey has to make it under the glare of notoriety.

The book is also a look at the cult of celebrity, in which being known is more important than what you are known for. It's not a pleasant aspect of twenty-first century culture, and the book pulls no punches describing it. But it's not a soapboxy, disapproving book. We see everything through Audrey's eyes, and Audrey is very funny indeed. I had huge sympathy for her, but I also found myself wanting to be her friend.

It's a fabulous read for teen girls; witty, wise and with something to say - but there's plenty of fashion sense included, so they won't have to go cold turkey.

My thanks to the nice people at Hodder for sending the book.

Sara's Face by Melvin Burgess and Black Rabbit Summer by Kevin Brooks are both rather more chilling looks at the cult of celebrity.

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