Review: Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins


Genre: YA Chic Lit

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads Says:  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?

Audio Book

I have to admit that this has been on my list for a while. Yes, it caught my attention. Yes, the cover is cute and the description interesting enough. But no, I was not in a hurry to read a YA chic lit/contemporary. Adult chic lit/contemporaries have no issues with. Mostly. However, I am always weary about YA chic lit/contemporaries because when you are my age you kind of lose the patience to deal with some of the off the wall things these kids do. You know, doing things they and everyone with a brain know they shouldn’t do but because they are teens they get permission to just do it anyway. NO. No patience for that behavior especially since I didn’t behave that way at that age. However, I thought that I would bump this one up on my list after attending a workshop where the author of this book spoke. She didn’t really talk about her book but more about the genre. At any rate, she was extremely smart, down to Earth and cool! It was the push I needed to bump her book up on that TBR list. I’m glad I did.

It’s Anna’s senior year in high school and she has just been shipped off to Paris, France to attend a boarding school for American children. She’s never been to France, doesn’t know the language, doesn’t know anyone and didn’t want to be there to begin with. She is forced to start over and to be self-reliant whether she likes it or not.

I thought this book was extremely cute. It was a fast paced, light read and for the most part, very believable. You felt as if you were in France and could vividly see the streets of Paris and all its loveliness. All of the characters were well developed and you knew exactly what to expect from them. I grew to like all the likable characters and not so much the nasty characters. There always has to be at least one; there were a few in this one. There was the dreaded love triangle in this book but not too bad. I liked the friendship that blossomed between Anna and Etienne aka St. Clair aka Etienne St. Clair and how they dealt with their communication issues.

I won’t lie, something happens between Anna and her best friend back home and although it might have been the presumed adult thing to do, as an adult I would have NOT handled it the same way. LOL There is such a thing as GIRL CODE/WOMAN CODE/BESTIE CODE! COME ON! Something else that bugged me a bit was that we really don’t get a clear justification from Anna’s dad or his reasoning for sending her abroad senior year.

All in all it was a perfect coming of age, coming into your own, moving one step closer to adulthood read.

I must mention that the reader of this audio-book did a great job but could have worked on her English/British accent a bit better. :-)

Much respect to you Ms. Stephanie P. for writing the book YOU wanted to write and not what the industry dictated you write.




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