Every girl dreams of visiting Paris. Maybe it’s the lights, maybe it’s the inevitability of beauty, maybe we’ve been psychologically engineered since birth to equate “Love” with hot French dudes, (who knows,) the only thing that IS certain is that at some point, our hormone driven minds drift to this beautifully exotic place and think, “What if.”
Most of us never get the chance to act on that subconscious need to spend hours on the steps of The Louvre writing poetry, and sipping blissfully bitter espresso. Others do, but regardless of which category we fall into, the dream of something magical happening to us while perched under the arches of the Eiffel Tower will always be there, alive and burning until we find something new to take it’s place.
“Anna and the French Kiss” IS our adolescent daydream. Personified and worded to perfection, it embodies every wistful moment we ever had as teenage girls.
Just when Anna thought she had her senior year in Atlanta all figured out; her pseudo-famous dad threw her a curve ball. Boarding school. Not just any boarding school though, no… that would be to easy, instead Anna is sent packing all the way to Paris. With a wicked case of homesickness and French language skills that rival a toddler; Anna decides that staying out of the way is the only SAFE option. Too bad the charismatic and equally as beautiful Etienne St. Clair has different plans. Will Anna ever get over the budding relationship she had back home. Why does St. Clair’s words always feel like a bullet train to the heart, and will either of them ever realize that being alone was never the problem to begin with?
I have heard nothing but good things about this book for months. “It’s FANATASIC!!” “A Must Read!”… “Best Contemporary debut EVER!” so I’m sure you can imagine that my expectations were only slightly lower than the national debt. If this book turned out to be a heaping pile of poo I was going to be one very pissed off puppy. So.. it’s a good damn thing it wasn’t.
The emotional aspects of this novel are amazing. To say there is a push/pull between the characters would be a gross understatement, (think more shove/cling,) and to make matters even more excruciating, just when you think Perkins is going to throw you a bone… she yanks the whole damn rug out from under you and the cycle starts again. This novel is sweet, and bitter and defines love in ways that can make even the most stubborn heart turn to mush. The setting is exquisite, the characters are impressive, and at the end of the day we are offered up a classic love story in a not so classic way.
So what does that mean? Well… it means that even if this books is priced at a whopping $12 I still highly recommend it to anyone who has ever felt their toes tingle when a boy walks into a room, to anyone that loves “love,” and to anyone who truly believes in soul mates.
Happy Reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: Love is like heaven, but it can hurt like hell.
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[Rating:5/5]
I’ve read a million reviews on this book, most of them raving. But you always have a fresh look and unique perspective. Reading your reviews are always entertaining, because you rated it 5 stars I’m really dying to read it now!