Anna and the French Kiss

Title: Anna and the French Kiss

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Pages: 372

Rating: ****1/2

Summary(From Goodreads): 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. Claire: 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?

Review: Can someone please send me to Paris, um, now?! Paris+young love+amazing guy=amazing! This book has gotten TONS of amazing reviews ( it has an average rating of 4.62 out of 5 on Goodreads, which is very rare for a romance book! To give you a clue, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone has a rating of 4.21, but The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks has 3.80), and I was ecstatic when I got it for Christmas. I am in love with Paris and all things French; I've been learned french for the past six years. And so I was really excited to read a book set in Paris! I would LOVE to go to a boarding school in Paris! But anyway.

I was expecting this book to be predictable (which it kinda was) and cheesy (which, ok, it was at the end), but it was so much more. Unlike most romance books, St. Clair, our leading man, has many flaws, as does Anna. I loved their friendship, because it proved to me they were truly compatible, not just physically attracted to each other. It made their relationship more real. They fought and had many disagreements, but they still loved each other.

Contradictory to the Anna/St. Clair relationship, the Toph plotline was INCREDIBLY predictable, and compared to the rest of the novel, was a bit pointless and cheesy.

I also enjoyed Anna's new friends. Her introduction to them is very realistic; they accept her and are nice to her, but they don't become superclose right away. In so many books like this, when the protagonist is in a new environment, she just "stumbles" across another girl who happens to be lonely and totally perfect for the protagonist and they become best friends YAY!! I was happy to see this book was different. Making friends isn't easy, and growing to trust someone new is even harder, and I thought Stephanie portrayed this well.

All in all, an extremely enjoyable read. I highly recommend it, and I can't wait to read Stephanie's follow-ups: Lola and the Boy Next Door and Isla and the Happily Ever After.

Recommended for: romance lovers, but also those who like their romances with lite cheese.