When I mentioned to a self-proclaimed bibliophile friend of mine that I was reading Audrey, Wait! she immediately told me what a fun book it was and how much she had enjoyed reading it. So far, any book this friend of mine has thought was good, I have been inclined to agree with her, so before I even began this book, I was excited about it and the excitement lasted me right through the entire book.
Audrey, Wait! is a fun, fast-paced book that surprised me again and again just because I was ecstatic that the author, Robin Benway, was obviously into the same music as I am. You see, when you see your favorite bands’ lyrics featured in a book and used as the names of the chapters, which I thought was very clever, you get excited, especially when we’re talking the likes of The Sounds, Radiohead, Death Cab for Cutie, Belle & Sebastian, The Cure, Cowboy Junkies, Patti Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Regina Spektor and many, many other fabulous musicians.
This is a story about Audrey, a normal teenage girl who broke up with her boyfriend. The story starts out simple enough; music-obsessed girl is dating musician boyfriend, girl breaks up with boyfriend, musician boyfriend writes an angry song about their breakup and plays it for pretty much the entire student body at a show that same night. But what happens next is very unlike any standard teen drama–Musician boyfriend’s band, The Do-Gooders, makes it big with the song Audrey’s now ex-boyfriend wrote about their breakup and pretty soon, Audrey is receiving hundreds of phone calls, IMs and emails a day and dodging reporters who are after all of the dirt on Audrey, Evan and their breakup. While appearing in tabloids, on message boards and in the minds of teens everywhere, Audrey enjoys her new-found fame a little bit, getting into the VIP section of a concert for one of her favorite bands and making out with the lead singer (Hello every teenage girl’s fantasy!) but as the tension Audrey feels because of her ex-boyfriend’s song rises, she realizes what she has to do–Go out there and tell everyone her side of the story, and that is exactly what Audrey, Wait! is doing.
The dialogue this book possesses is absolutely hilarious and unlike a lot of books out there, each and every character is interesting in their own way, you want to know more about every character as the story presses on. Even Audrey’s parents are great, and also very funny. This book is highly enjoyable for anyone of any age who ever wondered what it would really be like to be famous. You can read the first chapter of the book here and you can also check out Robin Benway’s blog here, which I highly recommend or add her as a friend on Last.fm, because really, who’s a music lover with internet access who doesn’t have a Last.fm account?