Anna and the French Kiss

What's inside (7 sections)

1. Atlanta girl in Paris
2. Meredith, Josh, Rashmi, Dave, and St. Clair
3. Misreading Bridget and Matt
4. Falling for a boy with a girlfriend
5. Spring, truth, and Notre Dame stairs
6. Key takeaways
7. FAQ

I started Anna and the French Kiss on a rainy evening because I wanted something light set in Paris, and I stayed up too late finishing it. It is a young adult romance, 372 pages, first published in 2010 by Dutton Books, first in the series called Anna and the French Kiss. It follows Anna Oliphant, a seventeen year old from Atlanta who gets sent to boarding school in Paris for her senior year. I expected pretty streets and a quick crush story. What I got was a much longer, slower build about friendship, wrong assumptions, and learning to trust what people actually tell you.

Anna does not want to go. She has a good life in Atlanta, a part time job at a movie theater with her best friend Bridget, and a long standing crush on a boy named Matt who works with them. She likes movies, she is a little anxious about new places, and she is close to her little brother Seany. Her father, Seamus Oliphant, writes popular books about kids fighting aliens and is suddenly famous enough that a movie is being made. The money from that fame is what pays for the School of America in Paris, a boarding school for American kids living abroad. Anna reads the move as punishment. Her dad reads it as opportunity. Her mom tries to keep the peace and is dealing with a new pregnancy as well.

She arrives with bad French and a heavy suitcase and a worse mood. The school, which everyone calls SOAP, is in a handsome old building with dorm rooms, a cafeteria, classrooms upstairs, and a small courtyard feel where everyone knows everyone. Her roommate is Meredith Chevalier, who is kind, movie loving, a little shy, and nursing a big crush of her own. Down the hall are Rashmi Devi and her boyfriend Dave, who argue and make up in a loop, and Josh Wasserstein, an art kid with a sweet manner, and Amanda, who is polished and sharp and not immediately warm. And then there is Etienne St. Clair.

St. Clair is the boy everyone notices. He is small, funny, warm, with an American father and a French mother, raised mostly in San Francisco but fluent in French and at home in Paris. Girls like him. Boys like him too. He remembers names, makes jokes in the cafeteria line, helps new kids find rooms. Anna meets him in a stairwell or hallway moment that feels awkward in the way real first meetings do, with bags in the way and bad timing. He is friendly right away. She is defensive because she has decided Paris will be awful and he is part of Paris. Then he keeps being kind, and her plan to hate everything starts to crack.

The catch, which the book states early, is that St. Clair has a girlfriend. Her name is Ellie, she is older, she is at university, and the relationship looks serious. Anna tells herself that means St. Clair is off limits and they can just be friends. She also tells herself she still likes Matt back home. Both ideas get shakier as the weeks pass.

Atlanta girl in Paris

The first weeks are all adjustment. Anna gets lost on the Metro, misreads menus, feels stupid in French class, misses Bridget and Matt and Seany with a physical ache. She emails home, counts days until breaks, sits alone at first in the cafeteria until Meredith pulls her in. Perkins spends time on small school details that felt true to me. The dorm beds, the shower schedule, the weekend permissions, the way teachers at a small international school know who skipped homework. History class with a strict teacher, French class where Anna is clearly behind, English where she can breathe.

What saves her is Friday movie nights and meals with the group. Meredith loves classic horror. Josh draws. Rashmi is blunt and funny. Dave is loud and loyal. St. Clair translates menus, explains jokes, walks Anna through the streets so she does not get run over. They go to cafes, order crepes and hot chocolate, wander past bookstalls by the Seine. Anna starts to carry a phrasebook and use it badly and laugh about it. She learns which Metro line to take, where to buy cheap notebooks, how to say she is American without apologizing too much.

I liked how Perkins does not make Paris instantly magical. Anna is homesick and jet lagged and annoyed. The city becomes likable slowly, through friends, not through postcards. A fair criticism is that Anna complains a lot in these early chapters. She judges the school before she tries it, snaps at her dad on the phone, assumes Bridget is replacing her. It fits a seventeen year old who was shipped across an ocean without a vote, but some readers will want her to open her eyes sooner.

Bridget and Matt back home matter more than they first seem. Bridget writes less often once school starts. Matt is friendly but vague. Anna checks her phone too much and reads short replies as proof she is being forgotten. She has decided Matt likes her back, mostly based on shared shifts and movie talk and one almost moment, and she holds that idea tight because it gives her a reason to resist Paris. The book lets her hold it without telling the reader she is right. That restraint pays off later.

Meredith, Josh, Rashmi, Dave, and St. Clair

The friend group is the engine of the middle of the book. Meredith wants Josh but thinks he sees her only as a friend. Josh likes someone else and does not see Meredith pining. Rashmi and Dave fight about attention and pride and then make up in hallways where everyone can hear. Amanda drifts at the edge, dating around, saying cutting things that sting because they are half true. Anna slots in as the new girl who watches and listens. She is good at noticing other people, less good at noticing herself.

St. Clair becomes her closest friend fast. They sit together at meals, walk to class together, save seats for each other at movies. He teases her about her fear of the dark in the dorm, about her love of organizing DVDs by genre, about her Atlanta accent when she tries French words. She teases him about his perfect hair, his habit of flirting without meaning to, his encyclopedic knowledge of Paris streets. They develop the easy physical comfort of friends, shoulders bumping on benches, heads bent over the same map. Everyone else can see where it is heading before they admit it.

Perkins handles his girlfriend Ellie with care. Ellie is not a villain. She is busy, older, with her own life, and St. Clair loves her in the settled way of someone who has been together a while. He visits her, calls her, defends her when the group jokes. Anna respects that boundary while hating it. She tells herself friendship is enough. She dates a little, or thinks about it, to prove she is fine. She throws herself into schoolwork and exploring.

One thread I appreciated is St. Clair family background. His mother is French, elegant, ill in a serious way that the book reveals gradually. His father is American, busy, distant, more interested in appearances than feelings. St. Clair carries worry about his mom and anger at his dad without making speeches about it. He deflects with humor. Anna, who is angry at her own dad for sending her away, slowly sees a different kind of parent trouble in St. Clair, one where money and distance hide grief. It gives him weight beyond charming boy.

If I have a complaint about this section, it is that the group meals and movie nights start to feel samey after a while. Cafeteria banter, walk to class, weekend outing, repeat. The charm carries it, but the plot idles while Anna and St. Clair circle each other. Readers who want fast turns may skim. Readers who like friendship stories will enjoy the loops because the jokes build affection.

Misreading Bridget and Matt

The title of this part could be the story of Anna checking the wrong clues. Back in Atlanta, Bridget gets busy with senior year and a new schedule. Her emails get short. Anna decides this means Bridget has replaced her with new theater friends. In truth Bridget is working extra shifts, dealing with family stuff, and bad at long emails. Anna does not ask directly. She sulks and writes shorter replies back, which makes Bridget pull back more. It is a clean portrait of how friendships fade by accident when both people keep score.

Matt is a bigger misread. Anna has built a story where Matt likes her and is waiting, or at least would like her if she were there. She replays small moments at the theater, sharing popcorn during closing, his arm near hers during a scary scene, a text that said he missed her. When she finally gets more news, it is not what she hoped. Matt starts dating someone else, or is clearly not pining the way she is. Bridget tries to tell her gently. Anna feels betrayed, then embarrassed for feeling betrayed, then angry at herself for wasting months holding a door open for someone who never knocked.

She does the same kind of misreading in Paris, just in reverse. She decides Meredith is fine and does not need help with Josh. She decides Rashmi and Dave will work it out without anyone stepping in. She decides St. Clair is happy with Ellie and her own feelings will pass if she ignores them. All three reads are partly wrong. Meredith is hurting and needs a friend to say so plainly. Rashmi and Dave need space, not advice. St. Clair is loyal to Ellie but also clearly lit up around Anna in a way that is not just friendly, and Anna pretending otherwise helps no one.

I found this the most relatable part of the book. At seventeen I also kept whole relationships alive in my head based on two texts and a shared joke. Perkins shows how Anna uses Bridget and Matt as anchors to avoid admitting she wants a new life. As long as Atlanta is perfect in memory, Paris can stay temporary. Once she admits Atlanta moved on without her, she has to decide what she wants in the room she is actually standing in.

The writing here is plain and funny rather than grand. Anna narrates in first person with a lot of asides about movies. She compares moments to scenes, which fits a girl raised on theater shifts. Some readers may find the movie references frequent. I liked them because they show how she processes fear, by fitting new things into old frames until she learns to look directly.

Falling for a boy with a girlfriend

By late fall Anna and St. Clair are inseparable in the way that fools everyone except themselves. They study together in the library, share headphones on the Metro, find a favorite bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, argue about the best horror film, walk home in the rain under one umbrella. He shows her corners of Paris she would never find alone, a small cinema that plays old films, a bakery with the best pain au chocolat, the steps by Sacre Coeur where you can see the whole city. She shows him how to be silly without performing, how to talk about books and dads without shutting down.

They almost cross lines and then step back. A hand held a second too long on a crowded train. A look during a movie when Ellie calls and St. Clair steps out to answer. A fight after Anna is rude about Ellie without meaning to be, then apologizes badly. St. Clair tells Anna she does not understand his relationship. Anna tells him he is right, she does not, and that stings both of them. They avoid each other for days, which feels awful after months of ease, then crash back together because the group keeps putting them at the same table.

Thanksgiving at SOAP is a sharp scene. American kids far from home try to make a holiday meal in a dining hall. Some laugh, some cry, some call home and regret it. Anna calls Atlanta and feels the distance more, not less. Her mom sounds tired. Seany sounds older. Her dad sounds distracted by movie business. St. Clair is quiet too, worried about his mom, missing San Francisco, trying to be cheerful for Anna. They end up walking after dinner, cold air, lights on the street, both homesick for different homes. It is one of the few moments where neither performs. They just admit they are sad.

Christmas break forces choices. Anna goes home to Atlanta and sees Bridget and Matt in person. Reality is kinder and harder than her imagination. Bridget hugs her hard and cries a little and shows her the new schedule at the theater. Matt is warm but clearly moved on, talking about someone else, treating Anna like a good friend rather than a lost chance. Anna feels grief and relief together. Grief because the story she told herself is over. Relief because she can stop checking her phone every hour. She also sees her parents more clearly. Her dad is not a villain, just a man overwhelmed by sudden fame and a new baby coming, trying to buy his daughter a grand experience because he does not know how to fix the hurt. Her mom is tired but steady. Seany missed her more than he says.

Back in Paris for winter term, Anna tries to be noble. She tells herself to support St. Clair and Ellie, to focus on grades, to be a good friend to Meredith. It works for about a week. Then small cracks show. Ellie visits less. St. Clair fights with his dad on the phone. Anna and St. Clair keep ending up alone together in the library stacks, in empty classrooms, on long walks that take the long way on purpose.

A fair criticism is that this long middle relies a lot on bad timing and things unsaid. If either of them spoke plainly for five minutes, half the ache would end. Perkins knows this and has other characters say so. Rashmi in particular calls Anna out for mooning while claiming to be fine. Dave teases St. Clair about his obvious feelings. The book asks you to accept that good people can be cowards about love, especially at seventeen with a girlfriend in the picture and a code about loyalty. I accepted it because the alternative, cheating or a cruel breakup for drama, would have made both leads less likable. The slow burn is frustrating on purpose.

Spring, truth, and Notre Dame stairs

Spring in Paris changes the air in the book. Days get longer, the gardens fill, school trips resume, seniors start talking about after graduation. Anna stops fighting Paris and starts living in it. Her French improves enough to order without panic and follow jokes. She gets better grades because she studies with purpose rather than to prove a point. She repairs things with Bridget by writing a long honest email instead of a short hurt one. Bridget answers honestly back. They do not return to daily closeness, but they return to truth, which feels more adult.

Meredith and Josh finally move. Without spoiling every beat, the group shifts. Rashmi and Dave hit a rough patch that does not fix with one grand talk. Amanda shows a softer side when no one is watching. Anna learns to let friends solve their own problems while still showing up with snacks and a seat saved. It is a quiet kind of growth, less dramatic than a breakup, more lasting.

St. Clair story turns on his mother and his honesty. His mom health worsens. His dad remains cold and controlling, worried about reputation and school fees and appearances. St. Clair has spent years smoothing things over, charming teachers, keeping Ellie happy, keeping his parents from fighting through him. Anna watches him exhaust himself and finally tells him what she sees, not as a girl who wants him, but as a friend who is tired of watching him disappear. It is the bravest thing she does in the book, braver than any kiss, because she risks the friendship to tell the truth.

They fight. He pulls away. Ellie and St. Clair strain under distance and age and different lives. No one is cruel. Ellie deserves better than a boyfriend whose heart is elsewhere. St. Clair knows it and hates knowing it. Anna knows she cannot push and hates waiting. For a stretch they are polite strangers who used to share headphones, and the loss feels bigger than any fight with Bridget or Matt because Paris without St. Clair is just pretty buildings.

The last part moves through exams, a school dance, long evenings by the Seine, a visit to Notre Dame and the narrow stairs and the view that makes Anna cry because beauty and ending arrive together. St. Clair breaks up with Ellie for honest reasons, not just for Anna, because the relationship ran its course and staying would be unfair to both. He deals with his dad in a limited but real way, choosing his mom time and his own plans over obedience. He tells Anna plainly how he feels, without games, in a place that matters to both of them. She tells him she was scared to want Paris because wanting it meant admitting Atlanta changed. They kiss without the book making it solve everything. Parents still messy. Friends still messy. School ending still sad.

I loved the ending for staying small. No airport chase, no grand speech in front of the school, no sudden parent permission that fixes all. Just two people who finally say true things and choose each other without lying about the cost. Ellie is treated with respect. Bridget and Matt are left in a human place, not as villains. Meredith gets her own happiness without serving only Anna plot. The series can continue with other couples because this friend group feels real enough to follow.

Who should read it. If you like slow romances where friendship comes first, where Paris is streets and schools rather than postcards, where the heroine is funny and flawed and grows, this will hit. If you hate love triangles or miscommunication plots, the middle will test you. Anna waits a long time to speak, and St. Clair waits even longer. Perkins makes the waiting feel sweet more often than bitter, helped by jokes and movies and food, but it is still waiting.

What I will remember is not one big scene but the texture. Cold hands around hot chocolate. Bad French that gets better. A dorm hallway full of noise before lights out. A boy who knows every shortcut showing a girl who is lost how to get home, until home changes. Anna Oliphant starts the book sure Paris is exile. She ends it knowing exile was a story she told to avoid choosing. That shift, from being sent to choosing, is why the book earns its fans. It is 372 pages of learning to look at what is in front of you, whether that is Bridget growing up, Matt moving on, or a French American boy with a girlfriend who is clearly, inconveniently, your person.

FAQ

Where is Anna sent for school?

She is sent to the School of America in Paris, called SOAP, for her senior year.

Who are Bridget and Matt?

Bridget is her best friend and theater coworker in Atlanta, and Matt is her crush from the same job.

Does St Clair have a girlfriend at the start?

Yes, Ellie, an older university student, and Anna tries to stay only friends with him because of it.