I started a book yesterday. This book is called Anna and the French Kiss and it is by Stephanie Perkins. I have had it on my wish list for a while but was never really dying to buy it until John Green talked about it in a video he made, and then Hank read it and he talked about it too, and I was just like, "I have to see what all the fuss is about." And honestly, I'm shocked that they liked it as much as they say they did, because basically it's a teenage romance novel, but hey, these guys are known for their love of young adult fiction, so whatevs, right?
I finished Anna and the French Kiss today. 50 pages yesterday, 322 today. Seriously. I could not put it down, and not because it's a thriller or something like that, because honestly it's not. Nothing that exciting really happens. It's about a girl, Anna "Banana Elephant" Oliphant, whose father, the fictional version of Nicholas Sparks who goes by the pen name of "James Ashley," sends her from Atlanta to boarding school in Paris. She doesn't want to go, but he insists, and she hates him even more for it (she kind of hated him before, because he's a stuck-up sellout who makes more money off of movies made from his books than the books themselves). Anyway, when she gets there, the girl next door to her, Meredith, befriends her and she becomes friends with her whole group of friends, and they have a pretty fantastic dynamic. They're like those awesome friends who are all mean to each other, but at the same time they have no other friends so they have to love each other. And one of them, Etienne St. Clair, is like supposedly the most gorgeous creature on the planet (perhaps next to Finnick Odair and Gale Hawthorne, but I guess they don't exist yet, right?) and all the girls swoon over him. Anna does not want to swoon over him, but she kind of does. And they become best friends and Meredith is jealous because she has a massive crush on him, but Anna insists they're just friends because he has a girlfriend.
[SPOILERS AHEAD, READ THE BOOK FIRST!]
I'm not going to recount the entire plot, but generalizing it too much would probably make it sound like it's not interesting. But basically it's about fear-- Anna has a germ phobia, Etienne is afraid of heights, and they're both afraid of being alone-- and how people with screwed up lives can both screw each other's lives up more and also make them less screwed up. The fear of being alone is why he won't break up with his girlfriend for Anna, and she's all, "but you're not alone, a**hole! I've been here the whole time!" It's also why Anna has been pining after this guy at home (in Atlanta) even though there was never really anything there, and why she dates this other guy who likes her when she thinks it's not going anywhere with Etienne.
But, yes, there is a happy ending, even for poor Meredith. Except... I still haven't really explained why I couldn't put it down. It's the relationships, mostly the one between Anna and Etienne, because it's not at all like the gag-inducing, endless proclamations of love that you find in Twilight (yes, they have always annoyed me; I'm not just saying that because everyone else thinks the romance in Twilight is obnoxious). They fight with each other and make fun of each other and purposely annoy each other. They have debates about whether Robin lays an egg and the Joker got away or Robin flew away and Batman lost his wheel on the M1 motorway (Etienne is English). They argue over whether Etienne is English, because he grew up in England, but was born in America, but is also 1/4 French. Or whether it's Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas. They get excited when one of them knows something the other doesn't, and give each other their respective national versions of the finger. And at the same time, they're always thinking the same thing. Like, Anna thinks it, and then Etienne says it (i.e. she thinks that if there were an Olympics competition in hair, he would win, "hands down. Ten-point-oh. Gold metal," and then he starts playing with her hair and says, "you have perfect hair.") And they ask questions about each other that nobody else thinks to ask, because they actually care.
And in addition to this, there is the fact that all of Meredith and Etienne's friends just completely accepted Anna as one of their own, even though she's new. They act like she's been with them the whole time, and make fun of her for not knowing French, and call her "Atlanta" when she says "y'all," and they're able to tell the whole time that she and Etienne are in love with each other. But they don't say anything until something needs to be said, so Anna and St. Clair (friends call him by his last name, Anna decides to call him by his first once she realizes she loves him) stop dancing around each other and being afraid of it.
I don't know, I just love the entertainment factor of this book. It was funny but not deadpan/slapstick, romantic but not so lusty that you picture it all in soap-opera glow, and deep but not quite John Green what-is-the-meaning-of-life deep (which I love, by the way, but sometimes it's nice just to read without having to think about the words so much).
Authors are probably better at summing it up than I am, so here are the blurbs from the back cover:
"From the magical streets of Paris to its charming narrator, Anna and the French Kiss has it all. A wonderfully winning book!" -Robin Benway
"No one captures the exhilarating and exhausting 'but-does-he-like-me?!' question better than Stephanie Perkins. A scrumptious read." -Justina Chen Headley
"Very sly. Very funny. Very romantic. You should date this book." -Secret Sister Maureen Johnson
"Smart and sensual, Anna and the French Kiss is everything your heart is longing for. You'll want to live inside this story forever. More, s'il vous plait!" -Lisa McMann
"Imagine a mug of rich, thick hot chocolate. Now add a swirl of whipped cream. Yummy? Oui. Well, Anna and the French Kiss is richer, sweeter, and-- yes-- even hotter. You're in for a very special treat." -Lauren Myracle (who wrote 1/3 of a book with John Green)
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