Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

View this Post

 4 stars

Official Synopsis: 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?

Whenever I stumble across an actual love story, I am pleasantly surprised. I read a lot of romance, but its very rare for me to read a love story. Romance, especially in the YA department, tends to be filled with “romantic” clichés.  The characters barely meet in an organic situation.  Their eyes lock or they have sex and suddenly it’s love! To me, this is not a love story. I believe that love stories are about a journey. A love story is a progression through a relationship where we experience the characters falling in love. It begins with a spark, builds into a too strong friendship and evolves into the kind of chemistry that attracts the couple like magnets. I am happy to say that “Anna and the French Kiss” is a true love story. 

Anna is a normal southern girl from Atlanta. She has a core group of friends, a great part-time job, a dream of being a movie critic and is on the brink of a relationship with her attractive co-worker. Everything is going smoothly for her senior year, until her newly rich father decides that she should finish her high school career in a fancy boarding school. Like all high school kids, Anna is not excited about finishing school away from her friends, even if her new school is in Paris. Anna moves to Paris, makes new friends and meets Étienne St. Clair. What follows is an entertaining and honest story. Anna is not burdened with heavy responsibility or insane plot devices. Anna is a normal teenager. She has normal teenage problems, like applying to college, trying to understand her parents and of course, boys.

Étienne, called St. Clair by his friends, is one of the best teenage love interests I’ve  read in a long while. When I read that Étienne had a girlfriend, I imagined he was going to be some kind of a tease or a cheating jerk. I never got that feeling of him. He’s a normal guy, who is trying to figure it out. Anna throws him for loop that he never saw coming and it is easy to understand his hesitation to make a move. We see this story through Anna eyes, but St. Clair is never seen as more than human or more than an 18 year old trying to figure it out. What’s great about Étienne is that even when his life is falling apart, he is still able to be there for Anna. They have a relationship that progresses and evolves at a realistic rate. I am so glad that Anna didn’t take one look at him and decide he was going to be hers forever. We experience every aspect of their relationship. The first time they meet, their first conversation and everything else that follows.

I love Paris. I don’t necessarily ever want to live there, but I spent the best weekend of my life in Paris. It’s easy to fall in love with the culture, the history and of course the food of the city of light and Stephanie Perkins does a beautiful job of bringing this city to life. This is Anna’s first time in Paris and we get to tag along with her while she makes it her home. We go to the movies, to Notre Dame and to eat crepes with the characters in this book. Étienne is half French and knows a lot about France and it’s history. With him by her side, Anna discovers the joys of Paris and even its secrets. I studied abroad in Dublin and I think that Perkins did an excellent job of portraying what it’s like to be an American living in a European country.  The worst possible thing I could imagine was someone in Dublin looking at me and thinking “American tourist,” and I found it hilarious that Anna had the same exact fears.   

While “Anna and the French Kiss,” never suffers from melodrama, pretension or over the top storylines, I do not want to give the impression that nothing of real consequence happens to these characters. Anna and Étienne both have drama with their friends, family and their own romantic lives, but it goes deeper. Through the side characters Meredith, Josh and Roshimi, we see other aspects of what it means to grow up. Unrequited love, losing friends, having your first relationship fizzle, forgiveness, the fear of a parents death and dealing with controlling and abusive fathers, all happen in this book. These characters are between the ages of 16 and 17. I can’t speak for everyone, but during that time I was beginning to discover who I am. My opinions and beliefs began to break off from what my parents believed. I began to see my parents as more than just my parents, but also human, with all their flaws and failures, etc.  I think this book really highlights what it means to mature into adulthood. The world begins to open up for Anna and her friends and it was great entertainment to go through it with them.

This book was released two years ago and has been on my to-read shelf for a long time. I am so happy that I finally picked it up. It was exactly what I needed.

Recommended for young adult readers, anyone who wants to visit Paris and fans of slow burn romances.

For more info: Goodreads page and Authors website.