Review | Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Review by Sarah
December 2010 by Dutton
372 pages
Amazon + Good Reads
5/5 stars

"Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming,beautiful, Étienne has it all...including a serious girlfriend. 

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?"

-Good Reads

Before I start this review, I want to say two things: 1) This book is horribly named and 2) This book has a horrible cover.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way – do not base reading this book off the cover or name. I put it off so long because I thought it sounded like a hokey love story that would follow a boring and predictable narrative arc, comparable to a Nicholas Sparks novel.

It wasn’t.

This book was I-couldn’t-put-it-down-and-had-to-keep-reading-into-the-weehours-of-the-night well developed and the story was believable. I was rooting for both Anna, our protagonist, and Étienne St. Clair, her love interest, to realize their love for each other and accept it. It took them a while, but I thought the pacing was brilliant. It kept me on the edge of my bed.

I also thought the minor characters, Meredith, Rashmi and Josh, were important parts to the story, unlike so many minor characters in other books. I liked that they were step up to possibly be in future books (I hear Josh is in the third companion novel by Stephanie Perkins).

This book, albeit oddly named and even more oddly bound, was awesome. It was a perfect YA love story, one that I can say I dreamed of in my teenage years. I can’t wait to read the second companion novel, Lola and the Boy Next Door. Ahhh, love stories. Ya gotta love ‘em.

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