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Review

Anna and the French Kiss

by Stephanie Perkins

First sentences:

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

Summary:

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?

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

Anna and the French Kiss was the third YA book I read back in December 2011, loved it and waited for the perfect time to re-read it.

With Anna Stephanie Perkins creates a wonderful story, set in an American boarding school in Paris, with lovely main and minor characters and one of the most loved boys in YA. I am a sucker for stories set in cities/countries I know and when the characters are all living together, like in a school or apartment, I’ll like it.

Anna, who is forced by her parents to move to Paris for her last high school year is the protagonist of the novel and a wonderful one. She needs a long time to open up to people and start exploring the city but than she discovers all these lovely places and people and grows a lot during this year. For me, Anna was totally realistic. I remember this feeling of being in love with a boy who isn’t available all too well. And the boy she likes … *sigh* What makes Anna so realistic for me is that she not only is lovely and nice but that she’s also selfish in some situations and when she hurts people she has huge difficulties to admit that she was wrong.

Ètienne St. Clair, the boy next door, friend of all, love interest of many – how he made me feel like a schoolgirl again. We all had a secret crush when we were in high school and I guess he had a least some of Ètienne’s character traits. St. Clair feels the need to be loved by all and that’s what makes him a friend of all. He never really disagrees with people which adds to his lovely persona but it also makes him a bit shallow. Fortunately that changes through the book.

Anna and the French Kiss is a lovely book with wonderful characters who immediately felt like close friends and shows me (a girl who has been to Paris but hasn’t fallen in love with it) a new and interesting view of Paris. At the end I decided that I should give this city another go and visit it again some time soon.

For more information about Stephanie Perkins visit her Blog and Twitter page.