Anna and the French Kiss

** how and why was this such an iconic YA romance book back in 2011-2012?! *This book is absolute sht! I think it might be the worst one I read all year. It is so bad and I am so mad that I won't be getting back those 2.5 hours. But Sneha, I hear you say, why did you go through with this? Here's why - when I was in ninth grade, this was the book. Everyone was reading it, raving about it, loving it! And in my lockdown state of mind, I thought “what could be more comforting than maybe reading a book my ninth-grade self wanted to read and enjoy that nostalgic ride and forget the reality!”. And oh boy, was I wrong.

To be clear, I am fine with characters been bad, incapable, ignorant overall shtty human beings. I get that, a book doesn't owe it to be to provide brilliant characters whom I'll marvel and adore and idolise. What I don't enjoy is a celebration of these subpar fictional human beings as “heroes” and “heroines” - making them an aspirational figure. When you show a troubled protagonist, you see their stories and their flaws with it and all of that is inculcated in the narrative with ease and intention. So, my problem with this book is two-fold. If this is meant for a teenage audience then you're selling some really dodgy and questionable romantic aspirations for teens here, Ms Perkins. Which would be okay if you projected them as problematic issues instead of absolutely romanticising them. We have this “adorkable” female lead whose ignorance isn't cute but recanting the male-gaze of cute young dumb blonde - that its okay to be dumb if you're cute trope and no, we are not having any more of that nonsense, thank you very much! The lead male is, well, a cheater. Spin it the way you want but if you want to be with this girl just end things or clarify things with that girl before. You're not hot enough to be that emotionally unstable, sorry. I am just so annoyed that a book as recent as 2011 is still selling and propagating these toxic, 19th-century ideals of romance, male-female dynamics, pumped with pure annoying American-French stereotypes. This is a book about the top 1% complaining about how hard the first world problems are and that's not even the most annoying bit. This lead is a brilliant example of why Americans enjoy the “ignorant, bigoted and privileged” stereotype. I primarily picked this book to enjoy Paris and read more about the city through the eyes of late teens but this book doesn't completely acknowledge the city, let alone give it respect. If your book is centred around “being in Paris”, do the city some justice?! tl;dr I dunno why this book enjoys such popularity, love and appreciation. It is beyond me. The story is a snowman made out of cliches, characters are lousy, writing is lazy and I couldn't find one redeeming quality. Do yourself a favour, don't let its 4+ rating on Goodreads trick you - it's absolute sht, don't read.