Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publisher: Dutton
Pages: 372
Release date: December 2nd 2010
Genre: Contemporary YA; romance
Sopurce: Bought

Find out more: Amazon ; Goodreads

Goodreads description:

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. Claire: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

First sentence:

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amélie and Moulin Rouge.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I've been in a huge reading slump lately, but I think Anna and the French Kiss has finally gotten me out of it! Whatever I read, I was feeling kind of underwhelmed, but with Anna and the French Kiss, it was finally fun to read again! So, first of all, thanks for that, Stephanie Perkins!

What made me fall in love with this book is Anna. Usually, it's the guy character that makes me love a romance novel, but in Anna and the French Kiss, I really loved Anna. She's not the typical protagonist. Well, in a way she is, but she's really different, too - there's just something special about her. She was so easy to relate to. (Although, that might just be because we're in kind of similar situations right now. No, sadly I'm not in Paris, but I also like a guy who has a girlfriend and says he'll break up with her but, well, doesn't.) I can't even explain why, but I could imagine Anna perfectly, and I felt all of her feelings. Her voice is great - Anna's way of thinking and talking is unique and loads of fun.

That's not to say I didn't love St. Claire - he's adorable! He's the perfect literary character - dreamy and swoonworthy but not so perfect it's unrealistic. His relationship with Anna is so... wow. The ups and downs are so realistic, and you can't help but root for them to end up together.

The rest of the characters are great, too. I loved Mer and Bridge and Toph and Josh and Rashmi and all of them - they're just so realistic! How realistic everything is is probably my favorite part of this book.

I liked the writing, too. There's a lot of dialogue and almost no description, which I'm not usually a fan of, but for some reason it worked. The dialogue is real, and especially the way Anna talks is so much fun to read about.

There is one thing I didn't like all that much about this book, though. The descriptions of the School of America seemed kind of unrealistic to me. I've been to these kinds of schools (not in Paris, sadly, but in general), and I don't think the descriptions of how small the school is, having only one teacher per subject and all, are realistic. Sure, this school is fictional, but still - it seemed a little like the author hadn't done her research on international schools well enough, which is something that always bugs me.

I don't have much more to say about this book. (Since I haven't been reading, I haven't been reviewing either, and I'm out of pracitce.) But Anna and the French Kiss is adorable, one of the most fun and realistic romances I've ever read. If you haven't read it yet (although you probably have - it seems like I'm the last one to read this), you definitely should, and I'm super-excited for the companion novel, Lola and the Boy Next Door!