Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary (with spoilers):
Anna is sent to boarding school in Paris against her will, leaving her almost-boyfriend, Toph, and her best friend, Bridgette, in Atlanta. Once there, she quickly befriends Meredith, Rashmi, Josh, and her love interest, Etienne St. Clair. Anna and St. Clair become friends, and Anna develops a crush on him as they run around Paris. Too bad he already has a girlfriend, Ellie, who graduated the previous year. Also, Meredith has a thing for St. Clair too, which makes the situation tricky. St. Clair drops a lot of hints that he's into Anna (drunkenly admitting he has feelings for her, buying her a book of Neruda poetry, and sleeping next to her over Thanksgiving break, to name a few), but Anna doesn't think he likes her because he won't break up with his girlfriend.
When St. Clair's mom gets cancer, his dad won't let St. Clair visit her. Anna and St. Clair both go home for Christmas, where Anna finds out that Bridgette is dating Toph, which Anna sees as a betrayal. When Anna gets back to France, she realizes that she is in love with St. Clair, who she starts calling Etienne. However, he's still with Ellie, so Anna starts dating Dave.
Tensions rise between Anna and St. Clair. They finally end up kissing in a beautiful garden, only to be caught by Meredith, who storms off. St. Clair chases after her, and then goes to see Ellie. Anna gets into a fist fight with Amanda, because Amanda called Meredith an unkind word. When St. Clair comes to Anna's door, she gets angry that he went to see Ellie. She stops hanging out with her friends, and is bullied by Amanda and her minions. Dave spreads the untrue rumor that he slept with Anna.
After Anna goes to the cinema, she sees St. Clair talking to his father. St. Clair wants to go to Berkeley for college, but his dad won't let him. Storming away from his dad, who is flirting with some woman, St. Clair spots Anna. She advises him to tell the woman (and all of his dad's friends) how happy he is that his dad is sending him to Berkeley, since his dad will be too embarrassed to contradict him in front of friends.
Anna climbs the tallest staircase in Notre Dame. She hears someone coming up the staircase, and is surprised to find it is St. Clair, since he's afraid of heights. St. Clair lets Anna know that her plan concerning his dad worked. They both declare their love for each other and start dating.
My Thoughts:
This book is a whirlwind of a love story set in beautiful Paris. I love how the author uses the setting, showing us how Anna and St. Clair fall in love amid the backdrop of the most romantic city in the world. The delicious descriptions of food made me want to hop on a plane and fly to Paris immediately.
Every character has something unique about them, from Meredith, who loves football and wearing rings, to Josh, with his skull tattoo and art skill. However, the side characters are never very fleshed out, mainly because Anna doesn't interact with them much. We're told that she's friends with Meredith, which is one of the main reasons she doesn't want to date St. Clair, but I never felt that they actually were friends. I would have liked to see more dialog between characters besides Anna and St. Clair.
I'm not sure if this book passes the Bechtel test (I think Anna and Meredith had a conversation about football, once, and she does talk to Bridgette about school) but it is a romance so perhaps that can be forgiven. Overall, I would have liked to see stronger relationships between the female characters.
I really did think the misunderstandings with St. Clair went on too long. After a while, Anna had to understand that he was in love with her, right? If they were such good friends, wouldn't they have discussed their feelings with each other long before they did? Perhaps this plot is something that could only happen with young main characters. However, their relationship was quite sweet. I like how they became such good friends before they started dating.
The ending is cute, but predictable. Did we ever doubt that Anna would end up with her Etienne?
Definitely a fun book that kept me reading. I've already checked out the sequels from the library.
