“Seriously, I don’t know any American girl who can resist an English accent.” – 4.25/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: movie reviews, new friendships, colorful pastries, boarding schools, English accents, terrifying diagnoses, cinemas in every corner, sweet wine grapes, a fear of heights, and the many steps of the Eiffel Tower.

Can Anna find love in the City of Light?

Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her coworker at the movie theater, who is just starting to return her affection. So she’s less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year.

But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he’s taken —and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic near misses end with the French kiss she’s waiting for?

I finally read the epitome of YA Romance: “Anna and the French Kiss”!

I know I’m super late to the “Anna and the French Kiss” party, but I am happy I finally started this series. I’ll admit I had low expectations for this book because I thought this was probably overhyped. Well… I’m thrilled to say I was wrong.

Oh, the charms of Paris. I was excited when I found out the setting was in Paris! I was afraid this was going to be a very stereotypical view of Paris, but I liked the details that made this story escape the usual stereotypes – like the mention of the sweet wine grapes and the cinemas on every corner! Of course, you still have the staples, but the mention of different things was a pleasant surprise and made me think the author was actually in Paris and took inspiration from personal experience.

The romance was cute! I liked Anna as a main character and Étienne was a cute and interesting romantic interest. The word that best describes the characters in this would be “adorable”. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact he had a girlfriend for most of the book. Without giving too many details, there’s a lot of emotional (and even some physical) cheating. I admit this wasn’t my favorite thing, but the rest of the story made up for it.

Surprisingly, there is some depth to the book. I thought this would be a full-on fluff book, but there were a few elements here that I wasn’t expecting. The lighter topics are well-balanced with the heavier topics mentioned –  it’s a fluffy read on the one hand with the cutesy romance while discovering Paris, but on the other side, we have one of the characters dealing with cancer. So not everything was butterflies and roses!

Overall, I was entertained and I was curious to see how the story ended. I heard the other two books are not as good as this one, but I’m still curious and I’ll be continuing the series to find out for myself.