Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Date Published: December 2, 2010
Publisher: Dutton
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

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 listeners - have long awaited?

(this review was written right after I finished the book hence the rambling and the fan girling)

When I started reading this book I wasn’t sure what to expect. A whiny female lead who does nothing but chase after the random guy? The random guy being a douche bag? I don’t know.. everything that makes me dislike YAs from time to time? Well let me say this. I am SO glad I read this despite all my prejudices. It’s such a GOOD BOOK!!!! Like the kind you are awwwing at and you feel happy, like you’re high on sugar.

The title of the book made me vary and after reading the reviews for the millionth time I finally gave in. I don’t read Chic lits that often.. and in my opinion chic lits are usually like movies. So I don’t bother with them.

But OMG! I love Anna. I love St.Clair!

They both are so realistic. I mean I was so happy with the characters. Although YES I wanted to smack Anna at times but you understand her decisions because you can relate to them (at least I can). I kept on thinking about her decisions and realized that half of the time I would half made the same decisions.

St.Clair… could be annoying.. but I understood why. I don’t like change either. Sometimes change terrifies me. Maybe not as much as it does St.Clair but still. In the end though, I think we all are scared of being alone and sometimes our fear is so great that we don’t realize how much it influences our decisions.

I was really glad that Anna wasn’t taking every chance she could to hit on him or anything because she knew that well hey friendship is better than nothing. She realizes his fear and she lets him go on being like that until well it’s time for him to do something.

And the scene where he was drunk and told her he liked her.. I was so freaking proud of her.
Okay I am rambling but I feel so happy about this book that I don’t know what to say.
Like how much I loved the romance. How much i loved the characters. How much i love St.Clair (did I mention that already?).

The best thing is that there is character development and not in the clearly obvious way.. but in the way that it happens in real life. We don’t become totally different people in a year but we learn from our experiences.

The only reason I didn’t give this book a 5 (technically it is a five, I rounded it up because. because. how can you NOT round it up?) was because I wish there was more happening in the plot. I mean I loved every single minute of the book but what was really happening other than relationship issues.
Well I suppose that’s what this book is about. See that’s why I don’t read a lot of chic lit.