Image Map Image Map

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Guest Review: ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins


Title: Anna and The French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Pub. Date: December 2, 2010
Publisher: Dutton
Pages: 372
Guest Reviewed by: Keegan Shayne Keegan on: Twitter


 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.


        Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins was definitely a book that many people raved about, despite being hesitant to read it at first; wondering whether or not I’d enjoy it, I bought it—this purchase was way overdue—and dove right into Perkins’ quirky and fun writing.

Contemporary books that are filled with humor are usually not something I would pick up, easily gravitating towards the darker side of the spectrum in terms of YA Contemporary novels; ravishing the gritty and taboo topics and themes. Anna was surprisingly just as good; being just as light and fun as the cover suggest. Anna and the French Kiss was a seriously fun book that had humor in all the right places and managed to tug on my heart strings when I hadn't expected it to.

For some reason my mind kept on changing the fact that Anna was in high school, instead it placed her in a university/college setting and I would sometimes confused myself—I like to believe that this was due to the fact that the characters were all mature and lived seemingly independently.

The setting for this book was awesome—Paris! Although many of us would agree that having the chance to go to school in Paris would be an amazing experience, some of us would be put off by the fact that it would mean attending boarding school and as a high school student who boards this book seemed all the more relatable and I could easily identify with some of the situations Anna found herself in throughout the book.

Perkins’ debut novel sure was impressive with a cast of well rounded characters and a setting to die for, along with the fact that the books was—for the most part—laced with witty humor and had a serious tone to it all at once. 




Hi, there! I'm Steph, and I wrote ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS and LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR. They have funny bits and kissing, so you should totally read them. If you're into that sort of thing. The final companion is called ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER, and it will be released in 2013.
The best ways to reach me are listed here on my website: http://www.stephanieperkins.com/about.html and my blog: http://naturalartificial.blogspot.com/


Thank you, Amy for letting me guest post on your amazing blog.



--Keegan Shayne


2 comments:

  1. Great review! I just recently got this one and I haven't read it yet. I too don't tend to do the cute fluffy type reads and prefer the dark and gritty. This has gotten so many great reviews though and it's not like I don't enjoy softer contemporary. I am just not as drawn to it. I'm glad to see that you enjoyed this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Confession: I still haven't read Anna. Or Lola. *hides* I've had them both on my shelf for a while now, but just never seem to get to them for some reason. I think I need to fix that this summer.

    ReplyDelete