Audiobook Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Dutton
Narrated by: Kim Mai Guest

Pages: 372 (8 Parts)

Received: Borrowed from Library

Release Date: December 2, 2010
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Goodreads 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:

This book came highly recommended to me by Angel at Mermaid Vision Books (and I mean she was getting mad for me not having read it LOL). So I decided that since I was making a New Year's resolution to try new things, I thought I would give audiobooks a go, and this was one of the first I saw, so naturally one thing led to another and I am glad to say that it turned out very well!

I haven't really read many contemporary YA novels lately, I've been more into the science fiction and adventure filled ones, so picking this book up was definitely different for me, but I absolutely loved the story. What I really enjoyed the most about the story is the friendships that Anna makes at her new school in Paris. This is more than just a romance story, the friends that Anna has are a big part of who she is at school and though they are considered secondary characters, they still have a big influence on the story as a whole.

I will admit that at the beginning of the story I wasn't a big fan of Anna, I felt that she could be quite overdramatic at times and some of her reactions would bug me a little. I did get used to it rather quickly and began to understand Anna's feelings more as the story went on, also I found that it added in a good amount of humour to this book, which is what made it so much fun to read.

As I said this was my first audiobook and I'm grateful that I had such a good experience with it, the narrator (Kim Mai Guest) did a great job in my opinion. I feel that she did a great job bringing out the different voices of each character (I did chuckle quite a bit when she did the male voices, but it wasn't bad at all). I also really enjoyed this book as an audiobook because I felt that the narrator brought out Anna's emotions throughout everything and it really came across as more sentimental.

If you haven't read this book I will definitely recommend it, and why not try it as an audiobook, it's definitely very well read. I really enjoyed the story and loved the narrator for this one (I want to check out other audiobooks she has read).