Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

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 Etienne St. Clair: 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?
From Misty:
I really wish I had not read any reviews before I read Anna and the French Kiss. All the reviews were really good, so I thought I was just going to die of the cuteness. But I didn't. Don't get me wrong. It had its cute moments, but I probably had too high of an expectation for the cuteness.

I had a really hard time liking the main character, Anna. Generally a protagonist will have some kind of progression during the course of a novel, but I thought Anna just got stupider and stupider. The story resolved, but not because of anything Anna did. And some of the situations were not believable, such as Anna getting grounded for the whole summer because she got detention for standing up for her friend and herself. She's EIGHTEEN and headed off to college at the end of the summer and she's GROUNDED? Please. And St. Clair is her best friend but she can't see that her obvious ploy to make him jealous makes him...jealous? Get a clue, Anna.

St. Clair had a depth of character that Anna just did not ever develop, but it was not really a character that I liked. Maybe his accent was "swoon-worthy" (it wasn't in the audio book--blah), but he was kind of a pansie. He liked poetry and was afraid of change and was terrified of heights and let himself be bullied by his dad? I just didn't think he was as awesome as all the other reviewers seemed to think he was. Plus, he fell for Anna who had no likeable qualities, unless following the crowd, giving in to peer pressure, misunderstanding nearly every person and situation, and having terrible taste in boys and almost no social skills are likeable qualities. Gotta minus one him for that.

Now I have really made this seem like a terrible book. It's not. It is cute, and I did enjoy it. There are some swears (totally unneccesary) and teenage drinking and implied sex (maybe it IS a terrible book), but I enjoyed it and will definitely read the companion book, Lola and the Boy Next Door. Recommended to anyone who likes non-paranormal, non-fantasty YA.