Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

I loved Anna and the French Kiss! J'ai aimé Anna et le français Kiss!

Here's the official summary from the author's website:

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.

And because it takes place in the City of Love, I am going to tell you exactly why I loved it:

1. Anna -- I loved her voice. She had an honest, fresh, straightforward and easy style of telling her story. I could literally swim or fly though this book.

 2. Étienne St. Clair -- Ok, what's NOT to love about St. Clair?! I love his name! It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?! I love that he is a beautiful foreign man with an accent. I love that he is a good friend. I love that Stephanie does a wonderful job of writing about his conflicted and sometimes tragic life. And I love that Anna never ceases to notice how beautiful he is.

3. Paris -- The city comes alive in this book. Many of the scenes take place at famous sites that we have all heard about, but many take place at smaller, interesting venues as well. We get to experience many, many sides of Paris in this book, and it made me fall in love with all of it.

4. Bridgette. And Anna's Parisian friends  -- Bridgette is smart and talented, and yes, she is flawed, but nothing out of the ordinary for a teenage girl. I really appreciated that Stephanie gave us some insight into all the members of Anna's group of Parisian friends individually, and I loved reading about their antics when they were all together. It was really clear that they were each other's home-away-from-home family, and they fought like family and made great memories like family. And in the end, they were all there for each other like family.

5. The name -- What a cute, clever play on words!

6. Étienne St. Clair -- ....oh wait, did I already say him?! My bad! {Blushes} Seriously, St. Clair is now my second fictional boyfriend, only behind Peeta Mellark from The Hunger Games. Now that's love.

6 comments :

  1. I love this book so much - seriously i think i read a little part of it every day to make me smile. :-)

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  2. I loved this book. I think everyone does. Etienne is definitely wonderful. There's something about the combination of American, British, and French that guarantees swooning.
    New follower.

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  3. The word kiss and French goes together. I'm hopping in for Friday Follow and decided to follow and stick around.

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  4. Wonderful review! I love that you mentioned the way her Parisian friends have become each other's family. So true. And Peeta is the very definition of swoon-worthy, so that is high praise for Etienne indeed. Thank you for stopping by The Eager Readers! I am a new follower. :)

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  5. Yes, St. Clair makes a fabulous book boyfriend! :) I just finished this Saturday and I loved every minute of it. Great review!

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  6. I loved the writing in Anna and the French Kiss as much as the characters. Stephanie Perkins truly captures the essence of teenage love and is even able to make it humorous. Perkins effortlessly weaves in humor in her writing. And Perkins has written one of the best relationships ever. It seems like she effortlessly created this amazing chemistry between two amazing characters; chemistry that leaps off the pages. After reading Anna and the French Kiss, I literally had to pass it around to all my friend on my floor to spread the love. Anna and the French Kiss is a book everyone needs to have on their shelf. There is just something about this book, something I cannot explain, that makes it amazing.

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