All posts tagged romance

Origin – Jennifer L. Armentrout

13644052Title: Origin
Series: (Lux, #4)
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Category: Young Adult
Rating: 5

Goodreads

Daemon will do anything to get Katy back.

After the successful but disastrous raid on Mount Weather, he’s facing the impossible. Katy is gone. Taken. Everything becomes about finding her. Taking out anyone who stands in his way? Done. Burning down the whole world to save her? Gladly. Exposing his alien race to the world? With pleasure.

All Katy can do is survive.

Surrounded by enemies, the only way she can come out of this is to adapt. After all, there are sides of Daedalus that don’t seem entirely crazy, but the group’s goals are frightening and the truths they speak even more disturbing. Who are the real bad guys? Daedalus? Mankind? Or the Luxen?

Together, they can face anything.

But the most dangerous foe has been there all along, and when the truths are exposed and the lies come crumbling down, which side will Daemon and Katy be standing on?

And will they even be together?

MY REVIEW

After Opal’s devastating cliffhanger, I was itching to get my hands on this and devour it. And it didn’t disappoint. The feels were so intense, I even had to take breaks to swoon and re-read some of Daemon’s dialogue. Origin presents us with Daemon’s point of view, and the book paralleled in the fact that we got both sides of the story: Katy, trapped with Daedalus, and Daemon going out of his mind trying to save her from becoming like empty eyed and tortured Bethany.

With some couples progressions throughout a series, the female protagonist usually loses her personality (if she ever had one) and instead of being utterly consumed with Daemon, Katy actually took time to miss her mom, blogging and reading. She suffers through horrible experiences yet her spirit didn’t break and she didn’t need to be coddled or saved like some damsel in distress. Yes, Daemon came for her. But the two of them worked together instead of what you see on those old raunchy novels the elderly lady at the drugstore swoons about, with the half dressed damsel hanging off the arm of some muscled viking.

The plot had some nice twists and whatnot, and there was betrayal from characters you actually liked and death of those you wished you didn’t like, and about fifty, “WHAT THE HECK?” moments. Not as bad as it’s predecessor, but I can’t wait for the next one.

If you haven’t already, read the Lux series! Especially if you swooned over Max and Michael from Roswell and itching to get a hot-alien fix.

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by Lillian Verlaine on September 27, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on September 27, 2013

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Incarnate – Jodi Matthews

15745753Title: Incarnate
Series: (Newsoul, #1)
Author: Jodi Matthews
Category: Young Adult
Rating: 3

Goodreads

NEWSOUL
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

NOSOUL
Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

HEART
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

 

MY REVIEW

“Im not going to waste time being angry about things I cant control. If I only have one life, I should make the most of it.”

Ana is a newsoul, the first born in five thousand years. And since the day of birth, she has been both hated and feared. Other souls have been reincarnated over and over for the last five-thousand years, and Ana’s appearence and the disappearence of Ciana instills fear into many that she may be the beginning of the end.

Raised by a bitter mother who believed she was a “nosoul”, incapable of true emotion or feeling, Ana sets out on her eighteenth birthday for a journey in self discovery. She wishes to travel to Range and implore the library for any explanation there may be as to why she was born and replaced Ciana. Along her path to self-discovery, she meets Sam, who shows her that she isn’t the nosoul her mother claimed her to be, but a newsoul. Tensions rise when dragons attack, and everyone knows that one attack will lead to others. Many blame this sudden attack on Ana’s arrival in Range.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about Incarnate. There are many aspects I found creative, such as the world building and how Ana is the first soul born in five milennia. The narrative flowed well, and Ana is a fighter, but there were things I had a difficult time accepting. If these thousands of humans have been reincarnated and remember everything from their previous lives, why haven’t in five milennia have they came up with ways to dominate over the dragon and sylph that attack them so frequently? Even Sam has died thirty times by dragons, but no one has developped much of a defense system?

Not to mention, I often worried about the romance between Sam and Ana. No, not the fact he’s technically five thousand years old to her meagar eighteen years of existence. He’s been reborn over and over, and many have stated that he had lovers in the past, even Ciana, whom Ana replaced. It made me wonder if he only loved Ana because she’s the first new thing thats ever happened to him in several lifetimes. I won’t even go into the fact that reincarnation isn’t gender specific and Sam has been a woman in several lifetimes and everything is all wibbly wobbly.

Most of the book is spent on the romance building between Sam and Ana, rather than her trying to find things out. And the end was lackluster, as if that was the big reveal? That’s it? It feels like Jodi freaked out about her ending and had no great idea as to Ana’s background so she made it as simple as possible and leaves us with a boring resolution.

I grant this three stars for the world building and the beautiful cover. But honestly, it didn’t make me feel anything at all, really. I’m not sure if that’s worse than raving mad and hating it, because at least then I feel something toward it. It’s okay. I won’t be screaming in joy to read the sequel nor will I be ripping my hair out raving stark mad about how much it annoyed me.

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by Lillian Verlaine on August 25, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on August 25, 2013

https://averlaine.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/incarnate-jodi-matthews/

The 5th Wave – Rick Yancey

15745753Title: The 5th Wave
Series: (The 5th Wave, #1)
Author: Rick Yancey
Category: Young Adult
Rating: 5

Goodreads

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

MY REVIEW

“But if I’m it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I’m going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity’s last war, then I am the battlefield.”

Do you like alien invasions? What about intense action and mild romance? Or maybe you like apocalyptic novels? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions (or all of them), then this is the book for you! Told in multiple pov’s ranging from protagonist Cassie to a broken soldier nicknamed Zombie, this story is compelling from each.

1st wave: Goodbye cell phones, cars, planes, television and electricit.
2nd wave: Adios coastal cities that are now underwater.
3rd wave: Sayonara to a hefty percent of whats left of the world’s population. Birds are spreading a horrific, epidemic disease.
4th wave: Trust no one. How do you rid the Earth of humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.
5th wave: Well… Read to find out?

Cassie Sullivan believes she very well may be the last person on Earth. She hasn’t seen another human being since her first kill of a gutted, dying soldier in a corner store outside of what was once civilization.

Unbeknownst to Cassie, she’s being hunted, stalked, by someone she called a Silencer. Silencer’s are those that were once as human as you or, well, you, (don’t stare at my third eye and tentacles, please), who were invaded by a silent intruder in the womb. A Trojan Horse, if you will. This Silencer has been waiting to pick off Cassie for a long time, hoping that her human survival instincts compel her to seek out other survivors.

Elsewhere, we have Zombie, whom once was just a teenage boy that harbored guilt that he left his baby sister to die. Now, he’s a soldier, training to eradicate the infected on the eve of the 5th Wave.

Other mentionables are Sammy, Cassie’s younger brother, who was taken, and sweet farmboy, Evan Walker, who nurses Cassie back to health and may be hiding a deadly secret.

The characters are so real and flawed, trying to survive and willing themselves to find something to live for, and none of them are willing to lay down and let the aliens win. Do yourself a favor and buy a copy or check this out at the local library! It’s even being optioned for a movie!

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by Lillian Verlaine on August 25, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on August 25, 2013

https://averlaine.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/the-5th-wave-rick-yancey/

Eleanor & Park – Rainbow Rowell

15745753Title: Eleanor & Park
Series: Standalone
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Category: Young Adult
Rating: 5

Goodreads

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

MY REVIEW

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

1986. The Space Shuttle Columbia is launched. Voyager 2 makes its first encounter with Uranus. Eleanor, an overweight redhead steps onto a school bus and sits next to Park Sheridan.

Park is a half Korean boy who lives a fairly nice life, with two loving parents and doesn’t know what its like to go to bed hungry or share his bedroom. Eleanor Douglas shares her room with her three brothers and younger sister, living in a highly dysfunctional family in a small, run down home with no bathroom door.

While these two may live within walking distance of another, they come from different words. From the moment Eleanor stepped on the school bus for the first time, she was already an outsider, with her flaming red hair and odd thrift store clothes. When no one offers her a seat, Park angrily tells her to sit down next to him, and proceeds to ignore her for the duration of the trip. For days and weeks, the two ignores each’s existence despite sitting six inches from one another to and fro. One day, Park catches her reading his comics over his shoulder, and begins to lend her his comics. They bond over music, with Park making mixtapes for Eleanor to listen to. Eventually, they even begin holding hands on the bus.

That’s whats so great about this novel – there isn’t some insta-love between the characters that you find in your typical high school romance novels. These flawed characters are very much opposites and over time, develop an reluctant friendship that eventually leads to love. And even then, everything is not all lovey-dovey and cutesy, and the two fight and argue a lot and kiss and makeup, just like almost any other teenage couple.

Overall, I liked this, even if it didn’t have more plot than two teenagers falling in love despite all their differences and the world trying to keep them apart. If you’re looking for a realistic romance of high school and first love, look no further.

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by Lillian Verlaine on August 19, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on August 19, 2013

https://averlaine.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/eleanor-park-rainbow-rowell/

Tiger Lily – Jodi Lynn Anderson

7719248Title: Tiger Lily
Series: Standalone
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Category: Young Adult
Rating: 5

Goodreads

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn’t believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she’s ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland’s inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she’s always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it’s the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who’s everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

MY REVIEW

“Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you’ve ever heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn’t win.”

Oh my. Where do I even begin? Jodi Lynn Anderson, you deserve all the awards. This novel is sheer brilliance – a novel in which we hear the tale of Tiger Lily, as told by Tinker Bell. While Tink herself cannot speak, as faeries have no language, they can sort of read minds and emotions. Tiger Lily has been part of Tinker Bell’s life for a long time. Tink is viciously loyal to Tiger Lily, even if she cannot speak and the outcast Tiger Lily never really acknowledges her, there are precious moments in which Tink is surprised by how Tiger Lily cares for her, even saving her when she becomes waterlogged.

When the lonely Tiger Lily meets Peter, the story delves into their friendship and eventually, their romance. After all, before Wendy came along, he belonged to Tiger Lily. This isn’t the cute rainbows and sunshine Disney Peter Pan, and there are instances of murder and suicide throughout the work. To the others in Tiger Lily’s tribe, Peter is a murderous and ruthless killer. Tiger Lily sees that these stories are in fact just that, stories. After their chance encounter, Tiger Lily seeks him out and the pair quickly fall in love. During the day, she lives her life in the village, where her impending marriage to Giant taunts her, while at night, she lives the life of the lost boys in the burrow.

As I hungrily devoured this book, I was led through a roller-coaster of emotions. It’s happy and sometimes joyful, but others make you cry and hate certain characters for being human and changing their minds. This isn’t the cutesy happy ending in fairytales. The characters you root for don’t get what they want, and people get hurt and people die.

Anderson’s Neverland is magical place, but it carries its weight of darkness that is filled with pain and heartbreak. However, happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. Yes, I just went Dumbledore there. Sue me.

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by Lillian Verlaine on August 18, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on August 18, 2013

https://averlaine.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/tiger-lily-jodi-lynn-anderson/

My Boyfriend Merlin – Priya Ardis

16000235Title: My Boyfriend Merlin
Series: My Merlin Trilogy (Book 1)
Author: Priya Ardis
Category: Young Adult
Rating: 3

Goodreads

In this modern Arthurian, 17 year-old Boston high schooler Arriane, aka Ryan, DuLac just found out the guy she’s been crushing on, hot biker Matt, is a little older than he was letting on. In fact, he is really Merlin—the Merlin, King Arthur’s Merlin, the greatest wizard who ever lived. Frozen in a cave for over fifteen hundred years, he’s woken for a purpose. But Ryan’s not impressed. Tired of being a relationship loser, she’d rather kick his legendary behind.

Sure, the world has been crazy ever since the sword and the stone fell out of the sky like a meteor. But despite gruesome gargoyles, a deadly new world of magic, and the guy driving her crazy, Ryan knows that family is everything. Will Merlin sacrifice hers to save the world? Will she be able to stop him?

MY REVIEW

“Do I look like I want to be involved in your teen love saga? Ask someone who cares.”

BBC’s Merlin has been over almost eight months, and my Arthurian feels are still all over the place. So when I was sifting through books on Goodreads to add to my birthday list, I found this baby and was terribly excited. I mean, Merlin, alive, after all these years… gorgeous with a Ducati? I am a sucker for gorgeous fictional characters on a motorcycle. Don’t judge me.

Ryan DuLac is the star of this modern Arthurian, and the story begins with the Total Tremor, a worldwide tremor as a sword in the stone appears in Trafalagar Square. Halfway across the world, Ryan has just found out that the hot biker guy she’s been crushing on is a little older than he let on… Matt Emrys is in fact the legendary wizard, Merlin. It reminded me a bit of Meg Cabot’s Avalon High, where kids are brought together to Avalon Prep to compete in drawing Excalibur out of the stone.

I rate this three stars, because while it was good, there were some things that just made me go

Ryan is convinced she knows the Arthurian legend pretty well, but when Matt mentions he is a seer, she had no idea what that was. Not to mention, her last name is that of Lancelot’s but it’s never mentioned. Another instance is when she’s given an amulet and Merlin mentions that he fashioned it for a queen, but Ryan, again, could not put two and two together, because obviously Merlin didn’t make an amulet for Julie Andrews, the true queen of Genovia.

The characters weren’t fully fleshed out at all; I was disappointed that Merlin seemed to lack depth. The majority of the first book he’s just glowering at his brother, Vane, who is getting close to Ryan. The speedy progression of the plot left little room for feel, such as Ryan witnessed the death of her best friend, and the storyline plummeted over the death with such speed Ryan nor anyone else seemed to never convey any emotion, as if the gargoyles killing Alexa was the equivalent of your plate of french fries going cold.

The good versus evil dilemma was too complicated for my tastes, and things that should’ve had depth were just brushed upon to hurry things along. The pace left me uninterested in the characters, and I wouldn’t have cared if most of them became gargoyle dinner.

There were also some spelling errors here and there, which would’ve made the book overall better if an editor had gone through it.

This book gets three stars for adding a fresh twist to the Arthurian legend. While it wasn’t executed to its full potential, it did keep me occupied for a full afternoon.

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by Lillian Verlaine on August 12, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on August 12, 2013

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The Lost Girl – Sangu Mandanna

13062488

Author: Sangu Mandanna

Rating: 5/5

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Books A Million

SYNOPSIS

Eva’s life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination – an echo. Made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, she is expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her ‘other’, if she ever died. Eva studies what Amarra does, what she eats, what it’s like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready.

But fifteen years of studying never prepared her for this.

Now she must abandon everything she’s ever known – the guardians who raised her, the boy she’s forbidden to love – to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive.

MY REVIEW. BEWARE, POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

Honestly, I have never heard of this book before I saw it in an Amazon recommendations and wanted it on a whim. I’m not even sure what I was expecting from this, but it ended up being more than I could’ve hoped. It is hard to believe that not many have read this, for it is amazing, especially for fans of Frankenstein. Even if there is little to no horror within these pages, it is a wonderful tale that makes you think.

The story revolves around an echo, a clone of you will, of a girl named Amarra. If anything were to ever happen to Amarra, the echo will be ready to take her place. Sure, Eva may look like Amarra, knows everything about her and is created of Amarra, but she is not Amarra.
She is herself. She is Eva. And she is real.

But Eva’s life isn’t her own. She can’t do anything her other doesn’t do and she has to do everything that her other wants to.

Echoes are illegial, especially in India where Amarra lives. People called hunters take it upon themselves to capture and kill echos, for most of the world believes these are abominations made by their creators, the Weavers, who play God and give life to bone and dust.

When Amarra dies in a car crash, Eva must take her place. She must fight to do what she wants to retain the life that is hers while doing her duty and giving hope to Amarra’s family that she is Amarra. A chain of events occurs when Amarra’s boyfriend figures out that Amarra died in that wreck, and it is Eva who takes her place. Eva is assaulted and beaten up, nearly murdered, and so on.

There’s many parallels to Frankenstein. The Weavers are the unloving creators, trying to play God by creating living beings from death. The echoes are stitched up and given life, like Frankenstein. But these echoes, especially Eva, are human. They live, they breathe, they have their own thoughts. They are real, despite made to be someones copy.

I loved that we see a rare side of fiction. It’s hard to imagine that the monster isn’t always some supernatural hell-bent creature or obvious evil villain. Sometimes, we are the monsters.

We stop looking for monsters under the bed when we realize they’re inside of us.- -Jordyn Berner

Once Eva is outed as an echo, even sweet Ray and Amarra’s friends turn against her and try to have her hurt, and even killed. It’s different to imagine good people doing evil, hateful things. I felt that Eva was more human than most of them.

Overall, I give this book five stars. I stayed up nearly all night reading and found it hard to put down until I finished it. Definitely a must-read for fans of light romance, Sci-Fi, and dystopian.

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by Lillian Verlaine on July 24, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on July 24, 2013

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Lola and the Boy Next Door – Stephanie Perkins

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Author: Stephanie Perkins

Rating: 4/5

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Books A Million

SYNOPSIS

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion…she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit–more sparkly, more fun, more wild–the better. But even though Lola’s style is outrageous, she’s a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans for the future. And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood.

When Cricket–a gifted inventor–steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

MY REVIEW. BEWARE, POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

Stephanie Perkins made a fan out of me with her debut novel, Anna and the French Kiss, which was amazing and one of my top reads for this year. However, Lola and the Boy Next Door falls short.

I liked Lola in the beginning, all colorful and quirky with her costumes and wigs and her love for organic food. However, she soon became whiny and moaned and groaned about Cricket, and I expected a big falling out between them, but she carried these hurt feelings and resentment for like two years because a boy rejected her. Not to mention, she had all these feelings when she already had a boyfriend. She led Cricket around, knowing how he felt about her now, for a majority of the book because she didn’t want to break up with her jerk boyfriend.

Cricket… I didn’t much care for him at first, but he grows on you. Of course, not in the same way Etienne grows on you. Plus, who names their kid after a bug? I live in the South where you’d imagine stuff like that happens, but I’ve never heard of such a weird name. Cricket, however, turned out exactly like you’d expect him… the boy next door.

The story itself, for me anyway, was just too drawn out in many places and could have been shorter in places. I found myself getting bored and scanning the page, which becomes a nasty habit when I’m bored.

I’m glad I powered to the ending, even though this is basically the same plot as Anna, this time being Lola has a significant other. Like most YA girls in romance novels, Lola realizes what a dunce she was being and unlike YA novels, instead of crying and whatnot, she tries to earn Cricket. I like that instead of the perfect male specimen and the average girl that most YA features, both of the characters are oddballs – Lola with her costumes, Cricket with his cogs and gadgets.

All in all, it was a decent read, and makes me want to read the third in the series.

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by Lillian Verlaine on July 13, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on July 13, 2013

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This Is What Happy Looks Like – Jennifer E. Smith

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Author: Jennifer E. Smith

Rating: 4/5

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SYNOPSIS

If fate sent you an email, would you answer?

When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O’Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds.

Then Graham finds out that Ellie’s Maine hometown is the perfect location for his latest film, and he decides to take their relationship from online to in-person. But can a star as famous as Graham really start a relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie want to avoid the media’s spotlight at all costs?

MY REVIEW. BEWARE, POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

After Graham and Ellie meet online via an accidental email meant for someone else, the two begin talking for months, never knowing who the other one is. When Ellie lets the name of her hometown slip in one of their conversations, and Graham’s new movie is without a location, he talks his way into a little town in Maine. After accidentally asking out her best friend thinking it was Ellie, the two embark on an adorable romance.

This book turned out to be one of those frivolous summer reads, the type you’d take to a pool or the beach for a light, fluffy read.

“Exactly. How can you know it makes you happy if you’ve never experienced it?”
“There are different kinds of happy,” she said. “Some kinds don’t need any proof.”

There’s not much of a climax, other than some random trip to see Ellie’s father that left her disappointed. It was cute, but there were moments that irked me a bit. I give this four stars, mainly because it was something that left you with a lack of depth of the real world and had no real plot other than Surprise! Graham’s a movie star.

All in all, this is a great story to read during hot summer days when emotional depth is too much to take to the pool.

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by Lillian Verlaine on July 4, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on July 4, 2013

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Anna and the French Kiss – Stephanie Perkins

17453983Author: Stephanie Perkins

Rating: 5/5

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Amazon | Barnes & Noble |

Books A Million

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 Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all…including a serious girlfriend.

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

MY REVIEW. BEWARE, POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

I love this book to pieces. I want to hug it and love it forever.

Anna and The French Kiss has to be one of the best contemporary novels I’ve ever read. Perkins delivers a believable romance and amazing characters to create a novel that was so good I didn’t want part with it until my eyes were so tired and blurry I couldn’t see the page anymore. If this novel doesn’t make you laugh, swoon, and want to shove St. Clair and Anna together like barbie dolls and say “NOW KISS”, then you’re doing it wrong. While the name is a tad bit cheesy, don’t let it fool you. This book is fabulous. A gem. If I hadn’t promised myself I wouldn’t buy anything until I read the books I had, I would be scouring Amazon for the second and third.

The writing is so beautifully descriptive that I could see myself through Anna’s eyes, taking in this wondrous, beautiful foreign country. The characters are all flushed out and realistic, even down to the secondary characters we hate, like Dave and Toph. I adored Anna and St. Clair, Josh and Rashmi, and Meredith.

Etienne St. Clair. Gah, if you need a new book boyfriend, this is where you’d look. He’s so easy to fall for, and I was with Anna when she was crushing on them, and her feelings began to gradually deepen. I’ll admit, I primarily liked him in the beginning because he’s British and I am a HUMAN GIRL, and we are not immune to British accents. St. Clair is sexy without trying, and he’s not the most popular best looking guy in school, or so perfect looking it physically hurts to look at him.

And Anna! I usually don’t care much for the lead because she’s usually insta-love and gets annoying fast, but I loved Anna. And not because my name is Anna and I’m from the South and it was too easy to pretend I was her. But because she was funny, with a wicked sense of humor. I loved that she was a stranger in a foreign land and suffered the trials and tribulations of an expat. I, too, would’ve wanted to forgo dinner if I had to butcher a language or point and hope that they understood my three year old actions. Seriously, once you read this, the first thing you’ll probably want to do is go book a flight to Paris. I had never cared much for France, wanting to go to Croatia and England instead, but now this is definitely on my list of places to visit.

All in all, Anna and The French Kiss is a easy, fun, laugh-out-loud, full of heart novel. I’ve been going through a reading slump lately disliking everything I read, and this book rejuvenated me and gave me hope for YA fiction.

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by Lillian Verlaine on June 30, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Book Reviews
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Posted by Lillian Verlaine on June 30, 2013

https://averlaine.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/anna-and-the-french-kiss-stephanie-perkins/

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