Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss

a novel by Stephanie Perkins


Waktu edar : 2 Desember 2010

Waktu menonton : Januari 2011

Media membaca : ebook di Stanza for iPhone

Hal paling berkesan : Etienne St. Clair! Such a gorgeous nice guy. Turns out not only bad boys can be hot, good boys can be equally as hot ;)

I never. NEVER. In all my years of reading, fallen completely in love with a character from a novel.

And I’ve read a LOT of romance books. I read mild ones, romance YA books, like The Princess Diaries or anything else by Meg Cabot. I love the hero in those books. I’ve read chicklits, like anything by Sophie Kinsella or Jennifer Crusie books. I love Can You Keep a Secret by Sophie Kinsella, and I love the guy in the book. I’ve read steamy romance books too, like Harlequin or Historical Romance set in the English Victorian Era. I love the hero in Julia Quinn’s book. And even though I never did love the hero in harlequin books, because they’re too shallow for me, but I like them enough.

A couple months now, I have read a great many Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover type. And mostly it is YA, or Young Adult. Two books that I read and love is The Duff by Kody Keplinger and Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles. Both are contemporary romance YA book, and both are absolutely delightful to read. But one thing they have in common is the amount of steamy scenes in them. Considering this is a YA book, it strikes me as unusual but overall I love these books and I love the heroes. I even gush never end about Wesley Rush on my review of The Duff.

But I NEVER fall completely in love with a book character like I did after I read Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. I can’t even begin to start how delightful and charming Etienne St.Clair is. He’s just beyond word. A book character than can make someone melt, who knows?

I guess let’s start with the book before I start babbling about Etienne again.

Anna and the French Kiss is a book by debut author Stephanie Perkins, who’s been getting rave reviews everywhere on all my favorite book review blog. I put off reading this because a lot of the times contemporary YA lets me down. I prefer books about Post Apocalyptic World, or Fantasy nowadays.

Boy, am I missing out.

This book starts with something that is so cliche and so misguiding, because you must assume that this an average book just by reading the premise. Anna has been sent to a boarding school in Paris because her dad decides one day that she must be well cultured. In Paris, she meets a cute guy named Etienne St.Clair, and they flirt endlessly and play a game of will-they-won’t they. The problem is, he’s already got a girlfriend.

This has got to be the most cliche premise ever. It sounded like a premise for late night “Gala Sinema”.

BUT. Everything in this book has been put together perfectly. It may sound cliche on paper, but the execution is beautiful.

First up, Anna. She’s a wonderful person, not because she’s perfect, but because she’s flawed. She got on my nerve a couple times, but that’s how people are supposed to be. How she behave make me think that she’s my friend. One thing that I didn’t like so much is how they pictured Anna as beautiful though. Because I love a love story that thrive in spite of how usual or how bland the people look. That’s true love.

Next we have the setting itself. We don’t see much of Paris actually, because Anna prefer to do something else beside sightseeing. And I love that about her, because it’s her character. But the result is this book feels like it could be set anywhere. Maybe a boarding school in England or in America. It doesn’t matter, because the Paris setting wasn’t explored further, and it’s a huge loss for me. Paris is definitely a place that I want to explore further.

The last thing about Anna that I love is, she’s a film critic wannabe. She loves movie, she have her own blog, and she took freaking FILM THEORY AND CRITICS for her major in college. How awesome is that? Even I want to study that, it sounds awesome.

And the romance. Ooooh the romance. I love tension. Sexual tension or romance tension in books make me swoon the more when they finally get together. And this book got plenty of it. The relationship develop overtime, over some little things or over big things too. And the kiss is perfect. It’s swoon-worthy, and sounds so delicious. It’s just perfect. And just the right amount of steamy scene, which is no sex at all. They even have this sleepover together, which is basically they LITERALLY sleep together. It’s very cute and sweet.

The final thing about this book is of course Etienne St. Clair. He’s the most swoon-worthy guy I’ve ever read. I usually don’t like beautiful people cliche, but he’s the exception. He’s handsome, got great hair, nice and charming, everyone love him. Even Anna said he’s beautiful dozens of time in the book. Usually I hate this type of character. It’s vomit-inducing. But Etienne is just so charming, and so cute that I didn’t care. I still don’t like that Anna tell us he’s beautiful again and again though.

Because we’ve seen the relationship grow from little things, we saw Etienne and how great a guy he is. Even though one flaw of him that I hate is he had a girlfriend! I hate cheating people but OMG Etienne is so hot and charming that he made me overlook that.

Bottom line, this is a cliche book done right. You won’t find an original plot here. You won’t find some heavy book. This is a light romance, with a hero that can make you swoon, and characters you’d be delighted to have as your friend. And don’t forget the very delicious romance ;)