Before the review, as a warning, I’m starting to feel like my rating system is completely arbitrary. I tend to judge works individually rather than in comparison to anything, and the “10” scale slides every time. ALSO. Most of my reviews are going to contain SPOILERS. I mean, I won’t spell out the play-by-play of the plot, but I address the works in their entireties most of the time. So don’t be surprised!
Initial Rating: 8/10
Yes, it’s a Young Adult, “chick-flick-y” book. I got a bit tired of classics after the semester, so the books I’ve been reading haven’t exactly been found in Barnes and Noble’s Literature section. BUT. Trust me. I don’t care if you’re a guy or girl; if you’re looking for a similar breather from the tough stuff, this was an excellent choice.
The thing that struck me most about the novel is that Anna could have so easily been inside my own brain. Stephanie Perkins captures the essence of teen girl PERFECTLY; the second-guessings, the rash judgments, the impressions, the reactions. Anna’s pattern of thought was just so incredibly realistic; even though I recognize that I am quite different from the book’s protagonist, I felt, upon entering her narrative, that I was coming home to something familiar and fresh. To top it off, the humor, mostly stemming from Anna’s thoughts and world view, was sublime. I literally laughed out loud, which is something I always note in a book.
It was the realism of the novel altogether that really made it stand out from the majority of YA “realistic” fiction out there now. The romantic atmosphere and tension was not, to sound slightly redundant/ contradictory, romanticized. Etienne is not the cookie cutout male protagonist/ love interest, and the hesitant, cautious, analytic mind games that play out between him and Anna over the course of the story recall real life “does s/he like me or not?!” drama. Their eventual get-together was a little too drawn out for my tastes. Sometimes their miscommunications at EVERY little step of their budding relationship got a bit annoying, but I suppose even that could be realistic in some ways.
Generally, the characters, particularly amongst Anna’s primary friend group, had perfect interactions. They were all surprisingly well-developed and complex characters all things considered, and only the “mean kids” seemed to be blank stereotypes to me. However, if the city, Paris, could be a character, then Perkins makes up for it. I’ve been there and wasn’t too impressed, but the way that Anna and her friends take on the City of Lights makes me want to return and re-evaluate. The atmosphere she creates within the city is excellent, and I love how she explores the definition of home.
Although it is so realistic and well-done with the levels she does take us to, I sometimes wish she would have pushed even farther, to even deeper levels of understanding. Then again, I’m not sure how much deeper you can get before you enter pseudo-literature territory. Anna and the French Kiss doesn’t try to be anything it’s not, and it is one pleasant and surprising piece of YA fiction. It has a great balance of elements, and the self-awareness Anna gains over the course of the story makes for a great, unique, and fresh coming-of-age tale. All in all, I guess that’s what I loved about this book. Even though the plot could have been taken out of a textbook for teen fiction (“girl goes to boarding school in Paris, meets hot guy, blah blah blah”), it felt completely and wholly original. It was a great starter to summer reading!
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