REVIEW #10 - Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

TITLE: Anna and the French Kiss

AUTHOR: Stephanie Perkins

GENRE: contemporary, romance

PUBLICATION DATE: Dec 2nd 2010

SYNOPSIS:

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?

REVIEW:

First thoughts:
I just hope there's my own St. Clair waiting for me somewhere you guys!

Cover

Not really my type, but it's cute enough so it fits the story!

Plot

Thrown a bit out of my safe zone (I am majorly fond of dystopian novels), I plunged into the story. I rarely read contemporary YA and after two awesome reads (this one and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky) I've come to a decision: I NEED TO READ MORE OF THEM.
Anna and the French Kiss is just what everyone says about it: adorable (but not over the top adorable), full of humor (but not exaggerated one) and it feels as if I were reading about myself and my friends!

Characters

I love what Stephanie Perkins did with her characters - she wrote them SO well, even the cliché ones. First things first - Anna is an absolutely lovely character. She makes mistakes, but they're not infuriating, dumb ones. She's just human. Although I totally screamed "OH NO!" aloud when she did what she did in the later part of the book.
Do I really have to talk about St. Clair? HE WAS SO PERFECT. And I don't use capslock that often, ok. Sure, he had flaws. Annoying ones, sometimes. Painfully, he reminded me of some in real life boy situations. ;) But even so, I loved St. Clair.
What I enjoyed was the fact that every character that appeared in the book seemed very alive, from Anna's friends like Mer, Bridge, Rashmi or Josh to St. Clair's dad.

I found Anna's father hilarious, by the way.

Writing

First person POV, through Anna's eyes. The writing is excellent and familiar in that friendly, comfortable way. It makes you laugh on one page and scream at the character (be it from frustration or glee) on another!

Overall

Loved, loved, loved it! I can't wait to read "Lola and the Boy Next Door", it sounds just as fantastic as Anna. I recommend this book to fans of contemporary books and not only. Even such a dystopian die-hard fan like me could enjoy it so much!

Rating

5 stars out of 5.

(I won the copy of this book at Paperback Treasures blogoversary giveaway. Thank you so much, Hannah!)