Anna and the French Kiss Book Review

Summary [from Goodreads]:

Anna is 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. Which is why she is 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? 

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Review:

Anna and the French Kiss, I must say, was a refreshing break from all the anime I’ve watched. It was like, “Well, hello there. Welcome back to the real world!” I’ve been neglecting my reading lately so I was ready to devour just about any book.

Anna is such an unfortunate character. Being shipped off to a country where you don’t speak a word of its language is hard enough. But being shipped off to a country where you don’t speak a word its language and spend an entire year going to school there is a deliberate torture. It means, she had to experience all the painful awkwardness, the woes of love, the bullying, and the ordering of food in the cafeteria in a place where she is basically an alien.

Seriously, what was her father thinking?

My favourite character was Josh. Josh the artist. I like how he looks absent-minded all the time but he always seems to know what’s going on about everything. He was this lazy-arse when it comes to school but you can see he’s very passionate about his craft. I respect that. And, well, yes, fine. Maybe I do have a bit of a crush on him. He’s just so cool. [Totally fan-girling now.] Look out for him in Isla and the Happily Ever After, y’all.

Overall, it was a good read. Despite the obstacles along the way, Anna was a true fighter. She did stumble and fall way too many times that sometimes you might find her irritating [read: whiny], and she made some wrong turns, bad choices [don’t we all?], but she was always trying to bounce back and shake it all off. If it were me in her place...well, let’s just say I would’ve avoided everything before it happened, and if it did happen anyway, I would’ve demanded that I be sent home and hate the world. But Anna didn’t give up. She made it through the end.

This is a love story, but it’s also a story of friendship. There were points that Anna missed/had taken for granted and she was lucky enough that there were people who led her to the right way when she needed it most.

If you want something to consume in one sitting, then spend an entire week pondering about it, Anna and the French Kiss is your book.