Anna and the French Kiss

by Stephanie Perkins
Hennepin County Library audiobook 8 CDs
read by Kim Mai Guest
genre: YA romance

This one is much more tame than the author's Lola and the Boy Next Door. Now I know which readers to booktalk which title to . . .

Anna's author dad sends her to school in Paris for her senior year. She loves neatness, film, and her best friend Bridget (back in Atlanta, GA). She doesn't speak any French and doesn't know anyone at her new school. She quickly makes friends with Meredith, Josh, Rashmi, and Etienne St. Clair.

At first, I was struck by how very young Anna seems - more like a fourteen-year-old than a seventeen-year-old. But then I thought of how often I've been uncomfortable reading about younger teens acting like much older ones . . . and it's nice to have this more innocent character.

Likes:
- details (old films, bananas and elephants, etc.)
- Paris!
- Etienne
- friendship and romance
- narrator's vocal work - superb!

Dislikes:
- repetitive whining
- pointless "pain" at imagined slights
- generally juvenile approach to relationships

More scraps of paper found in car (added 11.8.16):
Anna is painfully young and immature for a high school senior (but a nice change from an unnaturally worldly 15 y.o.) The first two chapters are vapid and irritating. The author actually uses the term "the female race" - wow. This was slow to get going. Almost boring at first.