After a number of dark and dense books,
I needed a little break. “Anna and the French Kiss” provided the
perfect respite. Frothy and light, this romance novel includes every
cliché available, but somehow manages to side-step predictable plot
development with fresh characters that are both real and interesting.
Anna has been “dumped” by her nuevo-riche father into the
American School of Paris for her Senior year of high school.
Resentful at leaving her friends, family and a possible beau behind
in her hometown of Atlanta, she encounters a very different world
where she understands neither the language nor the culture. Despite
this, Anna is taken into a social group quite quickly, and develops a
monster crush on a guy who is American, French and British. With
wavy brown locks of hair and that delicious accent, Anna is
head-over-heels in no time. There are complications, of course, and
more than one occasion where she waxes on about “the hair” and
the guy’s “perfect beauty” a bit much for my taste. There are
also the inevitable “longing/aching” passages on what she “can’t
have.” It’s this kind of thing that is usually such a turn-off
for me in these kinds of books. Ms. Perkins seems to be aware of
this tendency, however, and has made Anna and her friends diverse and
layered. Anna, herself, is aware of her over-the-top responses, and
works to mitigate them, or at least laugh at herself now and then.
When given a chance to make a wish near Notre Dame, she considers
“the boy” but settles for “I wish for the thing that is best
for me.” I had to admire the young woman for such a grounded sense
of self-awareness. Romance stories will always be romance stories …
there is a couple you *know* should be together, but in the meantime,
they make a lot of mistakes (Anna makes enough that I occasionally
wanted to reach through the pages and throttle her a tad) but there
is also a kind of promise in this genre that it all works out in the
end. Stephanie Perkins manages to avoid sappy whiny-ness (well,
there is a little, but not a lot) by making this a tale of Anna’s
growth as a person. She arrives in Paris as an immature 17 year-old,
and finishes the year as a much wiser, more circumspect and secure 18
year-old. Cue “La Vie en Rose” and you have a book that every
Romance fan (or a non-fan, such as myself) and every Francophile will
adore. Ooo-la-la! Jouir de.
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