Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Release Date: December 2, 2010

Publisher: Dutton

Pages: 372

Buy The Book: Amazon

"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?"

For a while I have mostly read YA fantasy fiction, where relationships generally play second fiddle to action, so it was a wonderfully refreshing change to read a purely romantic novel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all slushy and mushy – the characters are real, honest and believable. The relationship between the adorable Anna and (my new fictional dreamboy) Etienne is a fantastic slow-burner. They haven’t decided they’re soul mates within ten seconds of meeting; they become friends first. No boring clichés here people. Some of their scenes together are truly tingle-worthy, and almost impossible to read without wishing you were Anna!

The setting could not be any more perfect. If you’ve never been to Paris (or even if you have), this book will all but coerce you into booking a trip! There aren’t many books which can do a city like Paris justice in terms of description but this is definitely one of them. With two terrific leads and a wonderful location checked off the ‘perfect book criteria’ list, all we need now is a supporting cast… and boy do we get it. Meredith, Josh and Rashmi make up the rest of Anna and Etienne’s clique and we get to know them so well we almost feel like the sixth member of the group.

With two more books planned in the series (Lola and the Boy Next Door coming September ’11 and Isla and the Happily Ever After the following year), I cannot wait to devour another of Stephanie Perkins’ well-written, absorbing thoughtful, funny, believable and, above all, romantic novels.