Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

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. 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?

Okay, this book is amazing. If you haven't read it yet, read it. Now. I'd seen it on other blogs but had always just overlooked it on the library shelf until a friend actually told me that I MUST read this book. (or something like that). It's definitely not something I normally read. After all, I tend to prefer books that could absolutely not be real. I'm a sucker for fantasy and dislike reading about reality. But this... This was definitely an eye opener.

Anna really is a typical teenager. I could really relate to her. The way she acted, the nervousness she felt, the relationships with her friends... Like her, I'd be a complete wimp when it first came to exploring Paris, and though I may not share some of her passions, I could completely imagine her emotions throughout the novel. 

Unlike a lot of novels, I didn't find the drama particularly stupid either. It wasn't really much about cliques or popularity, though there were mentions of it. It was about the new girl. Just a regular girl. And it wasn't presented in a cheesy way either, which I was kinda expecting. I mean the new girl with the hot, popular guy? Please. But Perkins showed different sides of the characters. Believable ones and for that she really deserves some credit.

The situations, the characters, all were amazing. Yes it's a happy book so obviously it's going to have a happy ending but really, that bit of predictability doesn't explain how they'll get there, what will happen in between. This definitely wasn't an action-packed book, or a suspenseful one but there's something really charming about it and I'd definitely recommend it.