From Goodreads: "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. Claire: 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?"
A lot of the time I feel that in YA books of this nature (chick LIT/ romantic comedy) the female character isn't all that developed whereas the male is almost hyper-developed (we can seriously recall every fleck of colour in his eyes and we know how his one dimple comes out when he smiles his crooked smile)- the female being so less developed so that the targeted audience (YA females in the majority of cases) can imagine themselves in her place and it really is a shame that the female character lacks a personality because she has a potential to be such an amazing (and well-rounded) character. Therefore I am beyond ecstatic to see that St. Clair (aka Etienne), the male lead, isn't the only character who is well developed with an indescribable personality in this book, his counterpart, Anna, also has one- in fact, I think that she almost had a bigger personality than he did, her witticisms and their playful banter really made the book for me.
I think that why this book is so successful, besides the aforementioned witticisms and playful banter, is because Anna and St. Clair are flawed (as silly as that may seem). In being flawed that they are extremely realistic and you truly can relate to them. Also, the secondary characters, Meredith, Rashmi, and Josh, were quite relatable and they did fuel the plot quite a bit (a lot of the time I feel like secondary characters are just 'there' and are quite unnecessary but I didn't feel like that at all while reading this book). What I also liked about this book was its setting, I loved reading about places in Paris that I have visited (when we went to the Patheon last summer we were totally kicked out of the crypts by some grump security guard too!).
All in all, this is a really fun read that I highly recommend! Not only does it have a totally swoon-worthy male lead but it also has a totally well-developed plot that you cannot help but relate to!
Rating: 10/10
I swear I haven't seen any bad reviews for this one, and yet I still haven't read it. Maybe I'm insane. I guess I should pick it up now? Fab review, Avery! :)
ReplyDeleteYEAH!!! I loved this one so much, and you make such a good point about the male leads often being so much more developed than the female leads. I never really thought about that before, but you're right! I loved Anna and St. Clair both, this is one I know I can pick up when I'm in a piss poor mood and it will make me happy:)
ReplyDeleteI think I'm one of the last people on the planet to read this book and have heard nothing but awesome things about it.
ReplyDeleteI loved that your review had no spoilers but made me want to read this book even more. I do notice that about the female lead characters a lot and it is nice to know that they are both flawed. Reading about perfect happy people in contemporary fiction is never as interesting as books where the characters are slightly damaged.
Phenom review!
Ah paris and it just makes you happy. I need to read this one like NOW! Oh I wasn't sure of this one but am wanting it with every review I see!
ReplyDeleteExcellent! I don't know what's taking me so long to read this one after positive review, after positive review. I must be the only blogger left who hasn't read it. So excited to meet Anna and St. Clair for myself!
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