To Fill Up & Live | Anna & The French Kiss

First, a huge THANK YOU! to everyone that has continued to read and comment by blog posts in the rare occasion that I blogged last month. I will be back consistently this month! I truly, truly appreciate you, and will be showing your blogs lots of love very shortly <3

I feel like a total stranger. It feels like NaNoWriMo, which ended on Sunday night, has drained all creativity out of me. I've been binge-watching episodes of Reign every free moment I get for the past 24 hours because it requires little brain power and I am a girl obsessed. A wrap-up post will be coming shortly for anyone interested in NaNoWriMo or writing related topics.

But today is "Book Review Day." The book club's November book, and the only book I read this month, was a re-read for me, Anna and The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. And seeing as I feel the same way about it now as I did then, I've reproduced my review of it from last year.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below if you read it too! Also, if you've reviewed it, please do link-up with Kay and I below :)

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Title: Anna and The French Kiss

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Publication: 2010

Major Characters: Anna, St. Clair, Meredith, Rashmi, Josh

Main Plot: When Anna gets shipped off to The School of America in Paris leaving a best friend and an almost-boyfriend back home in Atlanta, she expects it to be miserable. But when she falls into step with a friendly foursome, one of which is a super attractive boy with an adorable accent, she wonders if maybe she could belong to the City of Light as well.

Favorite Line(s):
"Girl scouts didn't teach me what to do with emotionally unstable drunk boys."

""Soap?"
"School of America in Paris" he explains. "SOAP".
Nice. My father sent me here to be cleansed."

"And, suddenly, I want to touch him. Not a push, or a shove, or even a friendly hug. I want to feel the creases in his skin, connect his freckly with invisible lines, brush my fingers across the inside of his wrists."

My Rating: 5

To start off, it's not this classic monster of a book. It's not going to make you stop and think about your decisions or bring your morals into question. It's not going to change your life. It's not a Pride & Prejudice, Of Mice & Men, The Catcher In The Rye. It doesn't bring you to an alternate world that's been forever changed by our rampant consumerism like The Hunger Games or Divergent. Yet, it's still one of my favorites. Because it is such a charming, feel good book.

Stephanie Perkins perfectly encapsulates what it feels like to fall in love. That feeling of not knowing whether you're friends or more than friends, and feeling like your heart might just pop right out of your chest when he gets a little too close. The electricity of a first touch or the moment when flirtatious banter is capped by a look that makes the ground fall from beneath your feet. When I read this book, both times I found myself giddily smiling into its binding and kicking my feet into the air, vicariously living through Anna and her Parisian experiences. There are particular scenes I reread multiple times before continuing because of how endearing they are to read.

Sometimes, when you read a romance-y type of novel, especially one with teenage characters (most of the characters are seniors in high school), you expect to feel "over it" because the romance is so unrealistic and the characters are so naive. This novel didn't feel that way. Aside from the typical teen-angst moment here or there, the problems they faced felt real and the situations they found themselves in weren't so far removed from the drama of adults my age. It ran the gamut from family issues, to loss, to discovering a new place, to being scared to ask "hey, are you into me?", and none of it felt tired or old. And surprisingly, the way Perkins develops relationships and friendships in the novel is great on timing. It isn't rushed. A quote from Pride & Prejudice is actually perfect to illustrate this point: "I was in the middle before I knew it had begun." There aren't "insta-best friends" or "I love you's at first sight". You feel the relationships growing and stretching to fill the page and in the process, you fall in love as well.

I really enjoyed the simplicity with which the novel was written. As someone who struggles with using too many words in her writing and making things sound too complicated, the straight-forward, conversational writing of the novel was refreshing and easy to read. Plus, the way Stephanie Perkins explains Paris with such beautiful descriptions kind of transports you from your bedroom right into the City Of Love - if only until the final page is read. Or if you're like me, you go right back to the beginning and fall in love all over again.

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Feel free to link-up below, and of course, join us next month!

If you've never read along with us before, you may want to start now. And if you usually do, then (1) we love you, and (2) you don't want to quit on us now. The book-of-the-month for December is a novel I've been looking forward to reading! 

My True Love Gave To Me 

by Various Authors

It's a collection of twelve holiday stories written by various authors but all edited by the wonderful Stephanie Perkins, and I'm sure it is going to delight. We hope you'll join us and post a review on Tuesday, January 6th!  

Cheers to being back!