What to read after “Anna and the French Kiss” by Stephanie Perkins: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Miles Halter leaves his quiet Florida home for a boarding school in Alabama, drawn by the last words of famous people. There he joins a tight circle of friends, falls for the reckless Alaska Young, and is forced to reckon with loss and guilt.
After a boy dies in a fire she cannot explain, Lucinda is sent to Sword & Cross, a bleak reform school in Savannah. There she is drawn to Daniel, a distant student she somehow knows. The shadows she has seen since childhood, and Daniel's secrets, point to a love older than her life.
Rachel White is a thirty-year-old lawyer in New York who has always lived in the shadow of her glamorous best friend, Darcy. After a drunken night on her birthday, Rachel sleeps with Darcy's fiancé, Dex, a law-school classmate she has quietly loved for years. Their affair continues in secret, forcing Rachel to weigh loyalty, love, and the life she actually wants.
Eleanor is the new girl on the bus, with mismatched clothes and a chaotic home life; Park is the quiet boy who lets her sit beside him. Their friendship grows through shared comics and mix tapes into a cautious first love, threatened by her abusive stepfather.
Cath starts college separated from her twin sister for the first time and takes refuge in writing fan fiction. Between a new roommate, a classmate who keeps showing up, and her father's struggles, she slowly learns to live beyond her stories.
Laurie locks eyes with a stranger through a bus window and spends a year searching for him, only to meet him again as her best friend's new boyfriend. Across ten years of friendship, missed chances and other relationships, the two circle a connection they are never free to act on.
Rose Hathaway is a dhampir, trained to guard her best friend Lissa, a Moroi vampire princess. After two years on the run, they are returned to St. Vladimir's Academy, where Rose falls for her instructor and the school's wards hide dangerous secrets.
Sixteen-year-old Simon Spier is keeping two secrets: he is gay, and he is falling for an anonymous classmate online. When someone discovers his emails and threatens to expose him, Simon has to navigate friendships, family, and first love while trying to find out who Blue really is.
In 1987 El Paso, two Mexican American boys meet at a swimming pool and slowly become friends. Over long summers they share books, secrets and fears, and each begins to understand the love and longing he has been afraid to name.
Every year two children are taken to the School for Good and Evil, one to train as a hero and one as a villain. Best friends Sophie and Agatha are sure they know which is which, but the school has its own plans for them.
At Devon, a New England boys' boarding school, quiet Gene roommates with charismatic Finny during the summer before their senior year. Their friendship grows intense and competitive as the war outside presses closer, until one reckless afternoon changes both their lives.
Eliza Mirk is shy and friendless at school, but online she is the anonymous creator of a popular webcomic. When Wallace, a fan and fanfiction writer, transfers to her school, Eliza begins to imagine a life offline. Then her secret identity is exposed, and the fragile balance between her two worlds collapses.
Lara Jean keeps private love letters to the boys she has liked, never meaning to send them. When the letters are mailed, she pretends to date one of the recipients to save face, and the game begins to feel real.
Children who have returned from magical worlds struggle to readjust, so Eleanor West's home gives them somewhere to belong. When Nancy arrives from the Halls of the Dead, she finds the school hiding its own dangers and a mystery that threatens her new friends.
As teenagers Macy and Elliot spent every weekend trading books in a closet and slowly falling in love, until one night tore them apart. Eleven years later they meet again in San Francisco, and the friendship and heartbreak they buried come rushing back as they decide whether to try once more.
Every summer Persephone stayed at the lake and grew up alongside Sam, the boy next door, until one mistake ended everything. Twelve years later she returns for a funeral and finds Sam again, reopening the past they both buried.
Anna Sun's life falls apart when her boyfriend suggests an open relationship and her family demands more of her. She decides to spend one night with Quan Diep, a tattooed businessman recovering from his own losses. What begins as a casual fling becomes a tender, difficult connection that asks both of them to be honest.
Hanna Bergstrom has buried herself in graduate school, so her older brother asks his best friend, Will Sumner, to help her get out and start dating. Will is a venture capitalist who avoids commitment, but their lessons in romance soon turn into something neither expected.
Stevie Bell wins a place at Ellingham Academy, a remote Vermont boarding school for gifted students, because of her obsession with its famous unsolved case. In 1936 the founder's wife and daughter disappeared, leaving a taunting riddle. Soon after Stevie arrives, a new death proves the mystery is not over.
Hannah Bellinger takes a film job in the fishing town of Westport and moves in with Fox Thornton, the handsome, easy-going local everyone expects to stay single forever. As roommates they slip from friendship into something deeper, and Fox must decide whether he is brave enough to be loved.
Sixteen-year-old Vivian is a werewolf living with her pack in suburban Maryland. She falls for Aiden, a human who is drawn to the supernatural, while the pack expects her to mate with Gabriel. A murder near town threatens to expose them all, and Vivian must choose between two worlds.
Romance writer January and literary novelist Gus become summer neighbours in a lakeside town, both blocked and both skeptical of each other's genre. They make a bet to write in the other's style and slowly trade barbs for late-night talks, discovering the grief and hope behind their different worldviews.
Chloe, who lives with chronic pain and a careful routine, draws up a list of things she wants to do to get a life. To tick off the first item she asks Red, the tattooed handyman who looks after her building, for help, and their cautious friendship deepens into more.
In college, Matt and Grace were inseparable neighbours in their NYU dorm who fell in love, until lost contact after graduation pulled them apart. Fifteen years later, a missed-connections post brings Grace back into his life, and the two have one chance to understand what happened and decide whether their story is really over.
What should I read after “Anna and the French Kiss”?
Start with “Looking for Alaska”, “Fallen”, “Something Borrowed”: they are the closest to “Anna and the French Kiss” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “Anna and the French Kiss” these are Boarding School, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “Looking for Alaska”, “Fallen”, “Something Borrowed”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
