Book Review: Anna and the French Kiss

It’s Review Tuesday!!!
Just kidding, there is no way I could actually keep to a schedule. I have, however, read tons of books already this year and thought another review was long overdue! Here is what I thought of Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins:

I love books that make me want to experience new things. Or better yet, books that make me feel as though I was the one experiencing (in part) what the main character was going though. Anna and the French Kiss was definitely one of those books.

To be honest, I had pretty much no expectations going into this books. I only knew it was a romance novel about a girl going to France, and that it was read by a lot of Nerdfigthers. Obviously that was enough for me.

The plot is as following: Anna is send to an American boarding school in Paris by her father who believes it will be a good experience for her. There was no discussion, so Anna feels like she has been cruelly ripped from her old life and her friends and potential boyfriend. She is quickly adopted into a group of friends however, which includes the beyond gorgeous Étienne or st. Clair as they all call him. Unfortunately he already has a girlfriend… These friends drag Anna from her room and show her how beautiful another culture can be, even if you don’t speak the language. At all.

What struck me almost right away was the humour and the quirky voice of Anna, a girl who loves films and does not dream to become a movie star or a director—nope she wants to be a film critic. I have been reading a lot of dystopian and sci-fi novels lately and I needed something upbeat and lovely and cheerful as this book. Not to say that there weren’t darker moments as well; the book deals very realistically with Anna’s feelings of being separated from her home and stuck in a strange country. I myself felt a lot of the things she was going through when I went to study in England for a year. Then there is relationship trouble, the horrors of cancer, an abusive father…

Perhaps the thing that I loved most, aside from the romance and humour, was Paris itself. Together with Anna you get to explore the City of Light and are introduced to not only the major tourist attractions but also lesser known café’s, districts and cinemas. It made me want to travel and made me wonder why I have never been to Paris, when it’s relatively close by the Netherlands.

In short, this book is funny, well written, has the occasional nerdy reference that I can really appreciate and should appeal to anyone who is interested in romance, young adult and travel!

Keep Writing! & Reading!

Xx
Noortje