Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Penguin 
Published: December 2, 2010 
Pages: 372 
Source: Won from The Secret Life of a Bibliophile (Thanks!)
Rating: 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 Etienne St. Clair: 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?

In short: Despite its horrid cover, it's impossible not to fall in love with the characters and the dialogue in Anna and the French Kiss, as perfectly written by Stephanie Perkins.

This is what happens when you let superficial biases keep you from reading a book right when it is published despite all the positive reviews. Superficially, everything about this book just screams bad, to me. The cover is just horrid. The title is cheesy. And the blurb is lame. It's not just the superficial elements though: it's also the fact that I'm not into contemporary, I'm not into romance, and I most certainly am not into contemporary romance. I don't do chic-lit.

Ultimately though, I am a lemming and easily become interested in reading whatever everyone else is reading and raving about (I'm feeble minded like that). I am also almost always in agreement with popular opinion so it came as no surprise to me that I did end up loving Anna and the French Kiss very, very much. It was just the initial push to start the book that was hard for me; everything after that came easily and naturally.

I am usually easily bored by the everyday events of contemporary novels. I crave fantastical or supernatural happenings, usually to break the monotony of my dreadfully normal life (not really, I like my life). So I was impressed with how easily Stephanie Perkins caught my attention and held it for the entirety of Anna and the French Kiss. I was instantly involved and interested in the plot, the characters, and the setting. It can't have been easy to capture my genre-limited attention so kudos to Stephanie Perkins!

There was a ton of dialogue in Anna and the French Kiss. Usually this would annoy me, but it was one of my favourite parts in Anna. I loved it so much that I'm prepared to say that Stephanie Perkins has written the best dialogue for a book that I've ever read. Each line of dialogue was either witty or meaningful or character building and I loved it so much I kind of want to end this review right here and go reread Anna again.

But definitely the best part of Anna and the French Kiss (and from the reviews I've read, people seem to agree) were the characters. What more can I say about my love for Anna and St. Clair and their relationship that hasn't already been said? The characters were perfect but flawed, which made them all the more perfect. I could relate wholeheartedly with Anna and I fell in love wholeheartedly with St. Clair. Perfect.

So I am officially mega excited for Lola and the Boy Next Door, to be published this month (September 2011), and Isla and the Happily Ever After, to be published 2012. I'm okay that these are more companion novels to Anna and the French Kiss instead of sequels because I'm perfectly happy with the way Anna and St. Clair's story turned out. I would also love to read companion novels based on Meredith's, Rashmi's, and Bridgitte's stories as well. Just putting it out there.

Other Reviews:
A Girl, Books and Other Things
The Secret Life of a Bibliophile
YA Book Queen

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