Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Book Name: Anna and the French Kiss

Author/s: Stephanie Perkins

Language English

Publisher, year: Dutton, 2010

Page total: 372

Date Read: December 6-7 2010

Genre/s: YA, Romance, Coming of Age, Realistic Fiction,Contemporary Fiction

Synopsis/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.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna—and readers—have long awaited?

First line of Book:Here is everything i know about France: Madeline and Amélie and Moulin Rouge.

Review: I first read about this book on Gayle Forman's blog and it immediately caught my attention. Not only the synopsis sounded great but Gayle herself said it was really good too. After that, I started noticing that every time Anna and the French Kiss was mentioned, it was always highly praised by both authors and bloggers everywhere. So of course I got curious and had to get it myself!

Going with the flow is not very original, but this time, the flow is right. Damn, this book is good.

Anna is sweet, funny, smart and didn't annoy me at all. Her voice is unique and hilarious and I laughed so hard I had to stop reading and just enjoy the moment (actually, this happened several times throughout the book). Her relationship with St Clair really got me on the edge of my seat and I kept wondering whether they'd be together or not.

Étienne St. Clair was such a great boy/love interest. I loved that he was not perfect physically (but still beautiful) and that he made lots of mistakes himself.

I also loved the setting. Man, you don't see that many novels set in France, at least not American ones so I liked that too.

The prose is good, and the plot - oh my, it was nearly perfect! A great mix of fluffiness and that finding-yourself thing. Perkins really got me waiting for Lola and the Boy Next Door, which is a companion novel to Anna and the French Kiss. Hmm, can I wait that long?

I'd recommend this to teens and YA book-lovers. Honestly, I don't usually like this kind of romantic intrigues but this is good. Now get up and get it. Like, NOW!

Rating: 5/5

Quotes from book:

"Boys turns girls into such idiots."

"Why is it that the right people never wind up together? Why are people so afraid to leave a relationship, even if they know it's a bad one?"

"I wish friends held hands more often, like the children I see on the streets sometimes. I'm not sure why we have to grow up and get embarrassed about it."