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#5 Platform: Anna and the French Kiss
Oct. 1st, 2012 01:18 amJust... yes. Um. Hard to know how to introduce this nicely.
Book #41: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
So people often do say, don't judge by the cover. Or the title, sure. And yet, I felt a bit embarrassed carrying this book around, sadly, with its pastelly cover with the Eiffel Tower and the name and everything. Because really, we totally judge, the book along with the person reading it. If I could have gotten away with taking the dust jacket off, I would have, but alas, the library tapes them on.
None of this is the fault of the author, though, and this book came pretty nicely recommended, so I gave it a shot, and I'm rather glad I did. It's a simple enough story: Anna Oliphant, a high school girl from Atlanta, gets sent to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year by her dad, a writer of ridiculously sentimental novels that are huge sellers. At first, she's against it, really disliking having to give up her life and friends in Atlanta, but eventually finds her place in the school and Paris, with friends and a rather ambiguous connection with one boy in particular, Etienne St. Clair.
Easy sketch, right? And it sounds like something you've heard or watched or read before, a paint-by-numbers book. And yet it plays really well and surprisingly complexly, which comes from really treating the characters like real people, fleshing the main ones out nicely, and not Mary-Sueing the situation up. Anna does make some friends, but she's often still the outsider in the school; everyone else knows each other, and she's just stepping in. And Anna's a real character, with real interests, real strengths and flaws, and needing a real amount of time to cope with being somewhere new, not speaking the language, missing home and friends, etc. And her feelings about St. Clair are very nicely conflicted; that all felt really real, as well, and far from any instant love story.
Somehow, Perkins manages to do this all in a way that doesn't make you think "oh god, you're in PARIS! You're living in a cool place on your own in PARIS! Get over it!" No, she keeps you settled in Anna's POV, and everything feels solid. Paris is really solid as a city here, too, with good research into the city and its lore such that you feel like the place is well-inhabited for the book, with movie theaters and different landmarks playing roles. Life in the boarding school feels well-described and thought out, too; lots of people well away from home and given a lot of freedom leads to a wide variety of reactions and tensions, nicely. And St. Clair is a hell of a guy, with a really nice mix of strengths and flaws. It's hard to think of a more well-realized love interest kind of character in a book I've read in a long time.
The thing is, as real as it feels, and as much as it's from Anna's POV (meaning there's a lot of St. Clair focus), the tier of characters beyond her often don't feel as multi-dimensional as one might like... I felt that a number of the other school friends that she hangs out with didn't register that much (even Meredith, her closest non-St. Clair friend, doesn't feel super real), and I particularly wasn't a huge fan of the fact that St. Clair's girlfriend Ellie didn't score much time or presence beyond an obstacle, considering she was everyone's friend the year before.
But you know, this is a minor enough point if the only thing I can ding the story on is that some of the secondary or tertiary characters aren't as good as I might have liked, and even then, they're not exactly just one note beyond the antagonist-y characters (who, well, it's Anna's POV, so it's hard to get them depth). This sort of story is so easy to step wrongly on, to make it treacly or too thin, to pile into the cliches, to not sell the reality of the situation and give it time to grow into itself. Perkins pulled off a hell of balancing act, and made it feel easy and engrossing. It's quite a fun and easy read, pulling you through the story. So if people make fun of you for the cover, well, trot out the cliche. This time, they don't really know what they're missing.
Next up: An Experiment in Love. I mean, since we're in boarding school land, I guess.
Book #41: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
So people often do say, don't judge by the cover. Or the title, sure. And yet, I felt a bit embarrassed carrying this book around, sadly, with its pastelly cover with the Eiffel Tower and the name and everything. Because really, we totally judge, the book along with the person reading it. If I could have gotten away with taking the dust jacket off, I would have, but alas, the library tapes them on.
None of this is the fault of the author, though, and this book came pretty nicely recommended, so I gave it a shot, and I'm rather glad I did. It's a simple enough story: Anna Oliphant, a high school girl from Atlanta, gets sent to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year by her dad, a writer of ridiculously sentimental novels that are huge sellers. At first, she's against it, really disliking having to give up her life and friends in Atlanta, but eventually finds her place in the school and Paris, with friends and a rather ambiguous connection with one boy in particular, Etienne St. Clair.
Easy sketch, right? And it sounds like something you've heard or watched or read before, a paint-by-numbers book. And yet it plays really well and surprisingly complexly, which comes from really treating the characters like real people, fleshing the main ones out nicely, and not Mary-Sueing the situation up. Anna does make some friends, but she's often still the outsider in the school; everyone else knows each other, and she's just stepping in. And Anna's a real character, with real interests, real strengths and flaws, and needing a real amount of time to cope with being somewhere new, not speaking the language, missing home and friends, etc. And her feelings about St. Clair are very nicely conflicted; that all felt really real, as well, and far from any instant love story.
Somehow, Perkins manages to do this all in a way that doesn't make you think "oh god, you're in PARIS! You're living in a cool place on your own in PARIS! Get over it!" No, she keeps you settled in Anna's POV, and everything feels solid. Paris is really solid as a city here, too, with good research into the city and its lore such that you feel like the place is well-inhabited for the book, with movie theaters and different landmarks playing roles. Life in the boarding school feels well-described and thought out, too; lots of people well away from home and given a lot of freedom leads to a wide variety of reactions and tensions, nicely. And St. Clair is a hell of a guy, with a really nice mix of strengths and flaws. It's hard to think of a more well-realized love interest kind of character in a book I've read in a long time.
The thing is, as real as it feels, and as much as it's from Anna's POV (meaning there's a lot of St. Clair focus), the tier of characters beyond her often don't feel as multi-dimensional as one might like... I felt that a number of the other school friends that she hangs out with didn't register that much (even Meredith, her closest non-St. Clair friend, doesn't feel super real), and I particularly wasn't a huge fan of the fact that St. Clair's girlfriend Ellie didn't score much time or presence beyond an obstacle, considering she was everyone's friend the year before.
But you know, this is a minor enough point if the only thing I can ding the story on is that some of the secondary or tertiary characters aren't as good as I might have liked, and even then, they're not exactly just one note beyond the antagonist-y characters (who, well, it's Anna's POV, so it's hard to get them depth). This sort of story is so easy to step wrongly on, to make it treacly or too thin, to pile into the cliches, to not sell the reality of the situation and give it time to grow into itself. Perkins pulled off a hell of balancing act, and made it feel easy and engrossing. It's quite a fun and easy read, pulling you through the story. So if people make fun of you for the cover, well, trot out the cliche. This time, they don't really know what they're missing.
Next up: An Experiment in Love. I mean, since we're in boarding school land, I guess.
