{Review} Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Release Date: December 2nd 2010
Publishers: Dutton
Pages: 372
Genre: Contemporary
Links: Goodreads | Author's Website | Buy the book
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?
Review - No Spoilers
There are no words in the English vocabulary that can describe the feels I am going through at the moment. All over the blogosphere I kept reading reviews for this novel and I always brushed it off thinking I wouldn't like it. How dead wrong I was! Seriously everyone who tries to convince me to read this deserve the bragging rights! The whole time while reading this book there was just this inner monologue that kept berating the shit outta me.
"You had the chance to read this Francoise earlier this year! Why didn't you take it! You're a blogger for god sake you're obligated to do...." Blah blah blah you get the picture. Quite comical really!
So it's obvious that this book is at fault for me falling into the world of contemporary! Honestly I didn't understand the whole hype surrounding this genre and I thought it would be boring because there would be no action. Well dumb past me, I just totally get it now!
Self-pitying aside, this book was amazing. I've always loved the boarding school setting but the fact that it was set in Paris just ramped my like for this novel up a notch. You would think the fact that there are no parents around this book would suffer from the 'No-Parent Syndrome' but it didn't! Every author needs to take lessons from Perkins on how to balance the right amount of parent involvement. The description of Paris was perfect and I just felt like I was sitting in a cafe in Paris reading this novel. My dream is to go to France at least once so this book was just perfect. I loved getting a sense of the French culture and there was just the right amount of French mixed into it. And for once a book isn't set in the US or UK! Obviously somebody was listening to my prayers!
The characters were awesome. Stephanie Perkins portrayed a perfect teen voice through Anna and it was easy to slip into her character. Anna and the French Kiss is the perfect recipe for a well done contemporary novel. (Not that I'm an expert) It had a good balance of high school drama, romance and friendship struggles. It was interesting to see how the friendship grew between each character. It goes to show a small group of friends can be the best type. This novel explores some very realistic problems that I think everyone has at least once. The trials and tribulations of forming a close relationship with people whether it be friends, family and lovers. One thing I did take away from the book in the end is how a lack of communication can ruin everything and just assuming things of people can be even worse.
I just loved this book and I'll be definitely reading other novels by Stephanie Perkins. I was daring and bought this book and I'm so glad in the end I did. (I need to spoil myself more) Anna and the French Kiss will be on my mind for a while and it was a book I was able to take away important messages that I can apply to real life. I think that's the one thing I love about this genre, yet it is fiction it's so real! This book makes me want to pack my bags and move to a French boarding school if this novel is anything to go by. Trust me when I say go and read this!!! And as a last note, why isn't this a movie!?
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4 comments
I don't think I need to explain to you how much I love this book because you are probably sick of it and kow you have experienced it for yourself. I'm not gonna say much because I'm just going to repeat myself tomorrow but I'm so glad you loved this. SO GLAD. Great Review!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE boarding school stories too and only recently found out this one was set in one. Funny story, I, too, wanted to spend my secondary school years at a boarding school because of the Chestnut Hill books... Too late for that now though. :(
ReplyDeleteI'm actually too scared to pick this one up. There's SO much hype around it and, from past experience, I always seem to be let down by books surrounded with hype. I go in with extremely, unattainably high expectations and the book seems to fall short... I really want to pick it up but I just never seem to do it!
Great review! :))
I. Loved. ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS! The title/ Cover made it look kind of... (how should I put this...?) mature and totally all about the romance, but there was so much more to the novel! I mean, sure, there was a really, really, swoon-worthy guy, but he wasn't the focus.
ReplyDeleteGreat review!
YOU FINALLY READ IT OMG I TOLD YOU SO. St Clair though...who doesn't love him and want to marry him? I agree that the miscommunication in this book is something we can learn from! You do need to spoil yourself more often Francoise! Also I'm not a major fan of Contemporary because it lacks actions, but I've been on a ma-husive Contemp kick atm, and I'm loving it!
ReplyDeleteThis would make an ammaaazzzzinnnnnggg movie :D