3.5 Stars.It's hard not to compare Lola to Anna, so I'll get this out of the way first.. Lola and the French Kiss has a style and flair all its own, owing to Lola Nolan and her ever changing fashion, quirky love-crush Cricket, and the genuine teen anguish she goes through. What works here is that it Lola doesn't just start liking Cricket when she's still with her current boyfriend, punk rocker Max, but she's always liked him. That her feelings are established and thus get all churned up when Cricket comes back keep it from being shallow. Plus, she's got two gay dads, an awesome best friend,lives in San Francisco and works on a full on Marie Antoinette dress for a school dance. Lola might be a little too quirky for me in real life, but in print she's great, and so is this novel. And while I found LOLA to be enjoyable, to me, it was in no way, shape, or form better than ANNA. I thought it would be. I wanted it to be. I've been hearing that this book is more amazing than AATFK. And maybe that was the problem. This book was so hyped up that I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.