Anna and the French Kiss [Book Review]

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Title: Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss #1)

Author:  Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Published Date: 2^nd December 2010

Rating: 5 stars

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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?

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Review: Oh boy did I love this book. It has SO much hype around it. So much that I was prepared to be disappointed. I don’t usually fall in love with flat out romances, and I had this book for years before I tried it.

And I fell in love with it. So much love that I was up until 3am reading until I could finish those wonderful 400 pages.

When I started to read this one I worried that Anna was going to be the typical teen. But in fact, I loved her voice and her character! She was funny and smart and she was very realistic. Take this from someone who is a teenager as well. We do act like she does. I also really liked how much she loved watching movies, taking notes and dissecting them for fun. It’s sort of like the way I like reading – so I could relate to her in that aspect.

I loved the setting being in Paris. The best thing about this book was that I read it right before we went to Paris ourselves! I took notes of places to sight see because well, Anna manages to go to all the great touristy places in the book, and you really get a taste of French from reading this. So it did make me happy to see a unique setting done so very well.

I generally liked all the characters, really. Etienne or St. Clair was just… a dreamy kind of guy. Definitely one of my book boyfriends down to pat. He was a genuine kind of guy who had his own fair share of problems and tried to live life with a positive outlook – and needed friends to help him along the way. And yes, he was supposedly good  looking and all that, but the best thing about him was that he had his fears and flaws as well. If anything, what I liked about the characters were their imperfections. It made them realistic.

Meredith, Rashmi and Josh – they make up the main friends group and I loved them all! But I can’t go into more detail because then this review would be too long.

I liked the other themes that run into this book. There is a bit about cancer – and done differently in most YA books because it isn’t a main character suffering from it. And we don’t even get to first-handedly meet the character who has it. But simply get to see how it affects those related to the affected. That was unique. And then we have the theme of moving away from home, and visiting back and things not being the exact same. Another thing well done. Divorce theme as well.

I will admit that this book was very chick-lit and did have predictable moments in them. But y’know what? I actually didn’t care about the predictably because this book was just too CUTE. I am usually fussy about romances in general but this one? It was perfection for me. 

Yet, I am fully ready to admit that this book isn't without flaws. I have mentioned in a previous review of The Sky is Everywhere that I cannot really condone cheating in the novels I read. There was a bit of cheating going on in this novel, and I know it's a reason why so many other people dislike reading this one. I probably would've disliked reading it at any other time as well... but when I picked up this book, it was the exact time at which I needed a read like this. It's great when the perfect book comes around like that. But even in this five star review, I wanted to take a step back and mention that the cheating aspect is there and that might be a reason why you wouldn't enjoy reading this one.

Regardless, I did manage to really enjoy this novel. So please do give it a try?

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Gif Summary:

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Links: Goodreads and Amazon!

Olivia’s Question: Do you sometimes read predictable books, and not care about the predictability?

Olivia-Savannah x