REVIEW:Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

SYNOPSIS:Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near - misses end with the French kiss Anna - and readers - have long awaited?

MY REVIEW:I had already read a lot of positive reviews about this book when I finally borrowed it from my friend.Boy was I dying to read it!I opened it straightaway and read it aggressively and finished it in two days…but I did not exactly respond to Anna and the French Kiss the way I had expected myself to.I did not enjoy the book as much as I thought I would.In fact I quite disliked the protagonists Anna and Etienne St. Clair.Though the book is written in first person narrative I could not relate to Anna.She was so whiny and bitchy throughout the book.She was so irritating.The way she continuously urged St. Clair to break up with his present girlfriend,Ellie left me annoyed.I mean what right does she have to take decisions for him?!I simply did not like Perkins using the stereotypical three-girls-fighting-over-a-hunk theme.It disgusted me.And Etienne St. Clair.He is so boring and insipid.No matter how hard Perkins tried to convince me that he is this ‘beautiful’ boy,I could not be convinced.I definitely did not fall in love with him!I could forgive the primary characters for being so dull if only one of the secondary characters shone through!But they too were equally monotonous!Take anyone-Meredith,Rashmi,Josh,Dave,Ellie-everyone failed to impress me.Rashmi had fire but that has hardly been used properly in the book.But I guess I liked Anna’s kid brother Seany for being so fiercely loyal to his sister.I give a little credit to Stephanie Perkins for the fluidity in her prose but again she is a sucker for melodrama.The book is so very melodramatic.I sometimes felt like yelling at the protagonists for being so silly,whiny and melodramatic,especially Anna.Perkins takes potshots at Anna’s father who makes a living out of writing books overtly dramatic books involving deadly illnesses like cancer.But Perkins does the same thing in her debut novel.The oh-so-beautiful St.Clair’s mother is suffering from cancer in this book.There is not a single realistic thing about this book!The only thing that I liked in this book are the beautiful descriptions of Paris.But for that I would rather browse the French Travel Guide.For that I don’t need to sit through 372 pages of sheer teenage hormonal overdrive!The real bummer is that I was really looking forward to reading Lola and The Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins but I am no longer excited about it now.

MY RATING:2.5/5