Anna Challenge #1

So this April, although I'm not taking part in Camp NaNo or the epic A-Z blogging, I'm I’m excited to be taking part in the Anna and the French Kiss readalong, something I’ve never done before, but I love this book and loads of awesome people are doing the challenge so I figured why not. Always good to have an excuse to reread this wonderful book. 

Molli over at Once Upon a Prologue posted today's challenge, which is is post a picture of yourself with the book: 

Sorry for the poor quality - I took it with my webcam!

She also suggested we write a bit about how we came by our copy of Anna! Molli posted yesterday about her experiences reading Anna, and I started something about that, so I figure I would post that here. 

The short story is that after hearing a LOT about this book, following Stephanie Perkins on twitter, and reading amazing reviews and gushing over Etienne, I caved in and bought the book - it was one of two books that brought me right back into the YA world, so thank you Anna and Stephanie!

Here's a longer gushing: 

Some confessions to get out there at the start of this post. Firstly, this is my umpeth time rereading this book. I adore it so much – the combination of Perkin’s witty prose and well developed characters and utterly swoony boys and fantastic plots and settings. This book is utterly comforting to me. It makes me really want to go visit Paris and see everything that Anna sees. It makes Paris become so alive for me. Seriously, I’m becoming OBSESSED with Paris!

But I’ll be honest: I was apprehensive about picking this book up to begin with. I mean, to be fair, this was at the beginning of my reintroduction in YA literature, nearly two years (?!) ago. I’d been following authors on twitter for ages, including Stephanie Perkins, and had realised I’d been writing YA books and was reading loads about them and really getting immersed in this world again, something I’ll admit I shunned when I was a teenager because there was nothing I wanted to read that was aimed at teenagers. But I was unsure about the cover and the title and still thinking that I'd be ashamed to be caught reading any YA (I know right. Also side note, LOVE the redesigns of the covers! They're EPIC!) I kept doing that thing where you put it in your basket, stare at the checkout button and then think 'I'll get it later'..... that went on for a while.... Anyway, I found myself reading the description of Anna, loving the sound of it, really wanting to read it, hearing amazing things about it and finally ordering it, with Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star. And I was so glad I did! One of the best things I ever did. Now it's definitely one of my favourite books - and I even got my sister to read it and she loved it! Win!