Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Rating: ★★★★★

This is how I feel when I want to sum up how spectacular and brilliant this book has become and I am thankful to have this book in my private collection.

Before I go complete fanboy on this book let me give a short simple summary without giving any spoilers away. Anna and the French Kiss is about a girl named Anna, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia who is getting excited for Senior Year except her father who is international bestseller author (Think of Nicholas Sparks) decides to send her off to boarding school in Paris, France. FREAKING PARIS HOLY SH^T. She is royally pissed because she doesn't know any french and by leaving to Europe that means she is not going to spend her final year with her best friend and this boy she is drooling over. She argues and fights with her parents but at the end of the day she gets on that plane to Paris. She feels isolated at first but meets these amazing people and instantly become great friends. One in particular, a boy named Étienne St. Clair, is American/British/French guy who is charming, smart, beautiful, funny, and taken. Anna is great just to have him as a friend but soon enough she falls in love with him and does not know what to do! Will she express these feelings? Will St. Clair reciprocate these feelings of love to Anna? Who knows!

Can I just start off and say that these brand new book covers are absolutely stunning! I heard about this book so much in the book tube community and believed that this was going to be puppy love story meant for 12 years olds! I WAS SO WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS PRAISE JESUS!! I traveled to Paris this summer and I knew I was going to enjoy this book because I love revisiting places that I have traveled and when reading this book, I felt as though I was back in Paris and knew all the locations of where Anna explored with Étienne and her friends. Stephanie Perkins does not go into full blown details to help pictured about Paris but gave it a little spark and glamor which to me made it feel home.

What I admire most about this book is that its very quick in the beginning and never a moment of boredom. I would be reading this book and forget about the time and not realize that I easily read 100 pages in just a few hours. With that mentality alone made it a great book for me and the characters were hilarious and believable. I felt like these characters were real and by making them believable made the storyline heart warming, original, and unique. I still do not know how Anna could complain about traveling to Europe. I would switch places with you in a heart beat to live for 9 months in Paris compared to my 3 day trip! Shame on you, Anna!

I honestly can say that I have never been in a relationship and when that glorious special someone comes to my life, I hope I can have that unique, powerful, heart melting experiences like Anna does with Étienne. Stephanie Perkins made this characters with imperfections whether it be in their personality or their family life. Everyone on this planet comes with problems that we can all relate to and by showcasing that into this book made me fall in love with Étienne! I remember Anna telling Étienne that we did not choose our parents and that is exactly right because even though I am grateful for all that my mother sacrificed for me, there are moments that I want to disassociate with everyone in my family.

Even with Étienne's imperfections, he is perfect in my eyes and wished he was my soulmate. I have a lot of issues that I need to resolve whether in my family life, or in myself to even beginning to find romance and true love. I constantly tell people even if I meet Prince Charming tomorrow, and he is the perfect boyfriend in the world, the relationship would not work out because I need to deal with my insecurities and issues so that way I can be my true self and loving individual instead of impatient, jealous, not trusting, crazy boyfriend. A great example of someone who is struggling this is Anna.

Anna is completely oblivious in the beginning but when she realizes that she is in love with Étienne, she became this stupid, impatient, and crazy person. I know love makes you do crazy things but damn girl you need to take a chill pill. I understand her frustrations with this whole dilemma but its like before she realized her feelings, she was normal, and then now she is making all these mistakes which in turn screws up everything that she has worked hard for in this loving relationship with Étienne.

This book left me speechless and took me by surprise with everything that characters experience during these 9 months of adventure in the city of love and romance. You can actually see the progress these characters make during this journey of friendship and romance and I love how realistic Anna & Étienne relationships turns out to be in the end. I do not take relationship advice or aspire these unbelievable relationships in books but I would want my love experience to be similar to these characters.

These characters go through major crap because they accept the love they believe they deserved and that is not true. People are beautiful inside and out, and they should have the best relationships in the planet but sadly they are taken for granted. Also we as individuals take time to process what we truly need in our life, what we need to disassociate, and what must be done so that way we are closer to happier and brighter life. I realize that at the end of the day in order to have a successful relationship, I have to be friends first and develop this sense of trust and openness in order to succeed in life and taking chances. I admire Stephanie Perkins for this fantastic book and I wish she made sequels progressing Anna's life. It would have been amazing to do the college years, getting married, having children and dying old. That would have been a great series, and I do not think I am going to read the other sequels, maybe the final one because Anna and the rest of the cast are either mention or in the final book.