Book Review: Anna and the French Kiss

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Book Details

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Format: Kindle Edition

File Size: 401 KB

Print Length: 386 pages

Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0142419400

Publisher: Speak (August 4, 2011)

Book Summary

Anna was 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. So she's 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? Stephanie Perkins keeps the romantic tension crackling and the attraction high in a debut guaranteed to make toes tingle and hearts melt. (lifted from goodreads.com)

Book Review

Rating: 5/5

I am so lame reading Anna and the French Kiss so late. This is one of the most entertaining contemporary novels I’ve ever laid my eyes on. One thing I love about Stephanie Perkins is that she writes a flawlessly crafted story that has more than romance on its pages. Humor and drama perfectly combined to an amazing story of love, friendship and family.

The characters are not your usual perfect-out-of-the-fairytale-books type. Instead, Perkins made her characters with flaws and imperfections not only in their personality but as well as in their appearance. Anna Oliphant is not Barbie, she has a gap in her teeth and oftentimes clumsy. And there’s Etienne St. Clair – I sometimes forget that he’s short, because he’s really adorable and I get all dreamy. Not only that he lacks in height, but he bites his nails as well and has phobias about heights and change. Yet, both of them succeeded in overcoming their own flaws at some point.

Their love story is not perfect either – with Etienne having a long-time girlfriend and Anna having feelings for an old co-worker back home. It is not the usual love-at-first-sight thing, instead their story started with the both of them being just friends and the love just gradually developed as the story progresses – which is way much better!

The secondary characters were also a blast. I like Bridgette’s love for ‘huge’ words like callipygian (look it up) although she did something bad at the near-end of the story, I think it helped boost the romance of our two protagonists. Stephanie Perkins was able to portray different types of teens in such a way that you can identify yourself among them.

The setting is a bonus, it’s Paris!!!! Next to Dan Brown (who doesn’t count because he’s not into YA) – Stephanie Perkins described the city of love vividly that you will feel like you are walking with Anna for the first time in Paris!

I don’t think this review will do justice on how I really loved Anna and the French Kiss. It is nice, sweet, humorous, dramatic and so much more. I am looking forward in reading more of Stephanie Perkin’s novels and hoping the rest are as good as this one. Anna and the French Kiss is A MUST READ!

Favorite Quotes

“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.” 

“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 don't want to feel this way around him. I want things to be normal. I want to be his friend, not another stupid girl holding out for something that will never happen.”

"And friends don't let other friends make drunken declarations and expect them to act upon them the next day."  

ChuCha