Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins {Review}

Disclaimer: This isn't going to be so much a review as it is a gushing mess of ZOMG this book is so freaking amazing! 

Holy crap.  Or I should say Holy merde. This book is absolutely freaking amazing! (told you so)  I was lucky enough to be a part of an ARC tour my friend Jessica was kind of enough to organize after she won the book on Stephanie's blog.  I was one of the first people to get it and read it back in October.  I have been waiting (im)patiently for the last two months for the book to be released so I could talk about it and tell you to go and buy it IMMEDIATELY!

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 Étienne St. Claire: 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?

Ok so first of all, the characters in this book are so refreshing and REAL! Our heroine is a girl with dreams other than just landing the hot guy in school.  She is funny, smart, ambitious, and level-headed while still maintaining all of her angsty teenage goodness which of course I love. The hot guy is not perfect but flawed and frustrating without being a complete jackhole.  There are secondary characters and plot points that are fully fleshed out and not just placed as afterthoughts to fill up the pages. I was amazed at how true all of these situations read, I felt like such a part of the story as though I could just walk into Anna's dorm room, climb on her bed  and crack open a pint of Ben & Jerry's until we figured her whole crazy life out together.  I love it when books can do that.

Oh and Étienne?  An American with a French name and a British accent? Needless to say I loved him.  I'm not going to spoil but there is a whole chapter pertaining to Thanksgiving break...hotness.  Seriously.  That's all I'll say but oh yeah...hot plus ness.

This is Stephanie Perkins' debut novel.  I am still amazed by that every time I think about how much I loved this book.  She has such a gift for making the reader feel completely immersed in the world she creates, I am already looking forward to her next book Lola and the Boy Next Door which comes out in 2011. 

If you love YA novels, Paris, Nicholas Sparks bashing, amazing chemistry between protagonists, cute boys with even cuter accents, intense sexual tension, films, books that make you feel happy on the inside, or just feeling happy in general, you will totally love this book.  Maureen Johnson's blurb of Anna and the French Kiss reads, "You should date this book." I'm going to take it a step further and say I don't want to date it.  I seriously want to put a ring on it.  Go and buy this book...today.  You can thank me later.

Dear November: You kind of rocked.

This month seriously flew by! So many cool things happened this month that I didn't get a chance to blog about so I figured I'd throw up a quick recap. 

 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One.

I haven't been as vocal about my HP love as I have about my Twilight addiction, but let me say that if it weren't for the HP series, I never would have bothered to read Twilight.  I've loved the books and movies since 2002.  I didn't want to blog about it because frankly, the fact that we are months away from the final movie is heartbreaking.  I did see Part 1 on 11/19 in IMAX, and yes tickets were purchased about a month beforehand and I totally rocked a Dumbledore's Army t-shirt. The movie...well the word amazeballs comes to mind.  I loved every single frame and laughed hard, then cried harder.  I will probably do a whole week of fangirling posts leading up to the final film, because frankly this series deserves it.  Oh and don't even get me started on my ginger love for all things Weasley.

 My friend Jenny made me a virtual aunt.

I think it's been established that I am so much cooler online.  In fact, most of my friends live inside my computer.  One of these friends is Jenny and she is one of the awesomest people I know. She's strong, incredibly funny, heartbreakingly candid, and also happens to be a giant book nerd just like me.  Well just recently, she brought three little lives into the world and made me an honorary aunt! To say that I was excited beyond measure is a vast understatement.  This girl has made me cry more happy tears this month than I ever thought possible! My virtual nieces and nephew are still in the NICU but doing so well and I can't wait for her and her husband to be able to bring them home so I can watch how they grow up.  I may or may not have started crying while writing this...that really is just how I roll.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Love to eat turkey...ok well not really since I'm a vegetarian and no I didn't eat Tofurkey because quite frankly a big round ball of compressed soy does not seem appetizing in the slightest. I did eat two meals, a smaller one with my mother and another larger one with my father and his side of the family, both of which were nice.  I ate nothing but sides, but tried not to overload on carbs and I only had one dessert which was my aunt's red velvet cake (made from scratch) which basically made me thankful for being born.  Dessert kind of owns me...I'm not proud but there it is.  I took NO pictures on Thanksgiving! I'm so full of nostalgia fail.  During the weekend the princess and I went to see Tangled which as so freaking adorable! I loved that it was marketed to both boys and girls and yet it still had a lot of the Disney magic woven through it.  Mandy Moore has the perfect princess voice and it was my first time seeing a Disney movie in 3D which frankly...didn't make that much of a difference (except for the $2 extra I had to pay)

So that was my month. NaNo, the big hair change (which I'm still recovering from), all balanced with my normal routine of mothering, working, and not cleaning.  It's been pretty hectic thus far and now getting ready for the holidays is going to be even more insane!  

So how was your November?