Anna and the French Kiss – -> A Ranting Review
Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Genre: YA Romance
Pages: 273 (eBook)
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Anna Oliphant is the daughter of a biology teacher and a famous author whose books are popular movies.
For her senior year of high school, her parents send her away to a boarding school in Paris, forcing her to leave her life in Atlanta far behind. She imagines it will be horrible, as she doesn’t know anything about French culture, and cannot imagine being without her best friend and her crush.
When she gets to the boarding school, she spends the night crying. Her next-door-neighbor, Meredith, hears her and comforts her. They form an instant friendship, and Anna is invited to sit with them in the restaurant-like cafeteria. She befriends the group, though some come around more slowly than others. The best part of all, though, is when she meets St. Clair.
A French-English American with perfect hair, St. Clair steals Anna’s heart from the moment she first sets eyes on him. Charming, polite, and funny, he shares her interests and they develop a friendship. She knows Meredith is jealous, but she spends time more and more time with him anyway. St.Clair also has a girlfriend, who Anna hates on principal.
Things change between Anna and St. Clair when they are left alone at the boarding school for the four days of Thanksgiving holiday. Their friendship grows, and they realize they want more than just friendship. However, there is the problem of the girlfriend and Meredith’s crush on St. Clair. Will Anna get the boy of her dreams?
Reactions:
It was incredibly hard to not sound a bit sarcastic when writing the summary. To begin with, I
absolutely could not stand Anna. At all. She is a prime example of the failure of the America educational system and has a serious case of the SpoiledRottens . She outright says that she only knows one French word, “oui”, and only recently found out that it was not spelled “w-e-e-.” Oh, come on! She cannot possibly be that daft. It’s one of those common foreign words that isn’t even considered all that foreign anymore. It’s used so often, like “si”, that everyone knows what it means! She even has a pillow with her family crest’s motto that has an embroidered French phrase. However, she didn’t even know it was French until St. Clair pointed it out.
For seventeen years, she assumed it was Latin or some other language. Are you serious?
She is incredibly ignorant, and relies heavily on stereotypes. In fact, she does it to such a high degree that St. Clair calls her out on it. Heck, she even believes that the main thing Parisians do for fun is watch mimes! She also apparently has never had a Panini in Atlanta, which I find very hard to believe. She has the adorkable, clumsy-but-oh-so-cute trope down pat, and it’s just far too obnoxious.
She acts as though she is sent away to some horrible, horrible place in the middle of nowhere because her parents don’t love her. It couldn’t possibly be that she is sent to a prestigious boarding school
in Paris, because her parents want her to have outstanding educational experiences that she could use to fluff up her college applications. Yeah, couldn’t possibly be that.
Moving on. . .
Not only does the main character of this book maintain this “I’m so much better! I’m a good person! I’m a victim!” attitude, but the main heartthrob perpetuates the idea that it’s okay to cheat in a relationship. I feel bad for Ellie. She’s written as a “holier than thou”, slutty-dressing jerk, which is supposed to make it okay for St. Clair to cheat on her. Oh, and then for them to rub it in Meredith’s face all the time,
even though Anna allegedly did not want to make her jealous.
When she that her crush back home isn’t as interested as he originally seems, she cries and cries as though it’s the end of the world.
Even though she has been pining over St. Clair this whole time. Then, she ‘dates’ someone else in an attempt to get back at St. Clair for…what? Not breaking up with his girlfriend?
The Verdict:
Good: The writing is really good, and I loved the descriptions of Paris. The prose was beautiful, and the author writes cutesy scenes really well. I liked how she wrote the supporting characters, Rashmi and Josh.
Bad: Everything else. I was really disappointed by this book. I’ve heard a million great things about it, and now regret using part of my birthday gift card on it. The main characters annoyed me to no end, and it was just full of teenage angst. It could have been a fun read, if Anna wasn’t such an annoying toddler.
Rating:
I give it 3 out of 5 stars. The story itself is good, and the writing was good. Anna and St. Clair just really ruined it for me. He was so charming, but the whole cheating thing was just bad. He didn’t feel guilty, and it just made the entire book seem like it supported the idea that cheating on one’s partner is okay, as long as said partner is a jerk.
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Reviewed by A. P. Bullard
Triskele Reviews
