Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

When I first picked up Stephanie Perkins' Anna and the French Kiss, I looked at the shiny cover image of the coy girl and the Eiffel Tower and felt pretty doubtful about my chances of enjoying the novel.  Despite glowing reviews from magazines and from some of my favorite authors (like John Green, Maureen Johnson, and E. Lockhart), I thought that the blurb inside the front cover sounded like an overused cliche: girl likes boy but boy is taken.

But then I started to read and quickly found out that my expectations were very wrong.  Stephanie Perkins' first novel is far from cliche.  It is, in fact, one of the most refreshingly realistic yet romantic novels I've read in quite some time!

Anna has been sent off to Paris by her Hollywood sell-out father who suddenly decided that his daughter should send her senior year at an international boarding school instead of at an average American public school.  So Anna is forced to leave behind her little brother, her best friend, and her crush on the verge of becoming more to start a whole new life in Paris.  And she doesn't even know French! Anna is not pleased.  But then she meets Etienne St. Clair--part British, part American, and all around gorgeous.  However, St. Clair has a serious girlfriend and so Anna pushes her attraction to the very back of her mind.  As the year goes on, Anna finds herself whirling through Paris with a quirky new group of friends and suddenly St. Clair has become her closest confidant and friend.  The world of friendship, attraction, and love is full of confusions and misunderstandings that even the magic of Paris might not be able to untangle.

Anna and the French Kiss is a great love story, pure and simple.  It is about two people who are stumbling from a strong friendship into something new and different.  Anna and Etienne both feel an intense mutual connection but both also remain afraid to take the leap into unknown territory.  Stephanie Perkins has given us a great gift: a romance grown from an intimate and real friendship between two strongly developed characters.  But the detailed character development goes beyond the main pair; there a great cast of equally interesting and believable supporting characters.  While the story is unashamedly a romance, Anna's growth over the course of her senior year is widespread, involving her best friend at home, her family, and her new friends in France.

This novel is witty, well-written, and full of great three-dimensional characters and complex human relationships.  It is the best kind of romance: sweet but not sappy or fluffy.  So, if you're a fan of Sarah Dessen or Maureen Johnson or if you're just looking for a fun new romance to kick off the school year, check out Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins!