Book Review: Anna and the French Kiss

TITLE: Anna and the French Kiss
AUTHOR: Stephanie Perkins
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: realistic fiction, romance, drama
PREMISE: Anna gets sent to a Paris boarding school and finds herself wrapped up in a boy who won't go away.
MY REVIEW: Let's be clear, Anna is not a ground breaking novel. But it is a very well written contemporary romance and those are so few and far between that I understand why people went gaga over it last year. I myself am not a huge fan of contemporaries. It's just not my genre, which is why you don't see many of them reviewed on this blog. So the fact that I managed to enjoy this gives a lot of credit to Perkins.
I adored her writing in this. Oh so much good dialogue. She manages to find that wonderful balance between being funny, sweet, and have good character all at the same time. Yes some of the teen drama was a little cliche but it was well done cliche so I didn't particularly mind it. Also I actually liked the couple! Finally a canon couple I can root for. Also it was pretty hilarious. I loved the scene with the Girl Scout cookies in particular. Nothing brings teens together like Girl Scout cookies ;) And yes, Tagalongs are the best thing ever. Sadly those lovelies don't come until after my birthday.
So Anna doesn't get many points for originality. But Perkins does get many points for being a darn good writer. I look forward to reading Lola and the Boy Next Door and anything else she has in store for us. Also apparently John Green mentored her or gave input to this? If that's the case I really need to check out his stuff now too. I was going to anyway but now I really want too.
WHO SHOULD READ: romantic comedy fans, Meg Cabot fans, Sarah Dessen fans
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five eifle towers