Helen HoangRecensioni

This book did what it needed to do! The ending felt a bit rushed but I’m also glad that she didn’t mend things with Priscilla. Priscilla was mean and super duper entitled to things she had no reason to be entitled to!

Otherwise, Loved the book. Nice pacing and love that the lead is on the autism spectrum

I definitely enjoyed this a lot more than the kiss quotient! Maybe it’s because I was listening to it. So cute!

Khai Diep doesn't believe that he can love, that his autism prevents him from feeling love so his mother decides that she's going to solve his problems by getting him a girlfriend which he agrees to go along with. Esme Tran agrees to go along with this, if only to see if she can find a better life for herself and her daughter. She's living with Khai and he's finding himself at least not annoyed at her presence. And as things progress it just seems that his life is more complicated every day, but interesting.
The conversation between Khai, Michael and Quan was so much fun.

While I won’t critique the main plot (since many elements came from the author’s personal experience), the chemistry between the main protagonists was missing. SO MUCH happened to Quan “offscreen” before the story started that he barely resembled the character we had known and grown to love in two prior novels. A disappointing book- should have been a stand-alone with a different or even altogether new male protagonist.

Despite sudden, startling fame as the result of a viral video, Anna and her violin have gone silent as she finds she's unable to play to the high standards she has set for herself. To rub salt in the wound, her boyfriend makes the surprise announcement that they're now in an open relationship. Nonplussed, Anna convinces herself that embarking on a series of one-night stands, something she would never previously have considered, is exactly what she needs right now.

I chose this book to read on vacation, and it was a perfect fit: a fun, refreshing, believable (important!), and (mostly) light-hearted escape. Enthusiastically recommended, in addition to the first two titles in the series.

I wish there were more than five stars to give :) I loved this book! Stella was so charming and sweet and I really liked Michael. I can't wait the second book in in the series!

I enjoyed this book immensely and I was sure I would give it five stars - right until the ending, which was, I'm sorry to say, quite horrible. It was like one of those crazy, silly comedies and I hated it, so finally I gave this book only four stars.

The story was simple and cute: Esme, a very poor girl from Vietnam, goes to the USA to meet and marry Khai. Khai is autistic and it's his mother who chose Esme as his future wife. He's not very happy about it at first, but soon he discovers that maybe it's not such a bad idea.

I really liked Khai, he was a sweetheart. He always tried to make people happy and he was so clumsy with people and kept saying and doing the wrong things. And the first sex scene was hilarious.

I didn't like Esme. She was dishonest, she didn't tell neither Khai nor his mother about her daughter, which was a huge lie. She kept hiding her thoughts from Khai, although both he and his mother asked her not to do this. She kept taking his things without asking for permission - for example his dead cousin's bike. She cut the tree in his garden with a kitchen cleaver, for heaven's sake, and she didn't even discuss it with him first. She run from him and didn't take his phone calls, she didn't seem to care, that he worried about her. She seemed very selfish and untrustworthy to me.

Still, I enjoyed the story and I'm happy I read it. I will definitely read the next book by this author.

From my blog: https://dominikasreadingchallenge.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-bride-test-by-helen-h...

5⭐️ I absolutely loved this book. I tried reading book 2 before I knew there was a book one and just couldn’t get into the story. It was because I was missing out on this love story. They are pretty much stand alone stories and you do not need to read either before or after to get the individual story. There is only one small tie in from this book in the second book.

I def prefer this book over the second but love both so much I am waiting for the 3rd.

This love story grabbed my attention because it could be real. There are so many people living a very fictional life that you never know what differences, hardships or trials they may be facing.

3.5 ⭐️ ‘s : The love story is interesting. Some of the dependency can get boring, but that is with any romance. I kept reading because I love that this story shares any and everyone is capable of loving.

The writing style is good and the relationships in the story come off the page as though they could be real.

Having ASD meant I heard some of me in this story. While the spectrum is so wide, there were things that I deal with daily in this story. I am appreciative of feeling represented in a love story as it doesn’t happen often.

DNF ~50%. Objectively pretty good, but not my jam.

I’m definitely in the minority opinion on this one. 😶

I decided to pick this book up as part of my attempt to read more of the genres I rarely reach for. The romance genre and I have never been close pals, but it's mostly because I just prefer my stories to have copious amounts of magic/fantasy worlds/sword fight and unfortunately those things don't appear often in romance books. But I found a couple new adult romances this year that I enjoyed, and everyone was raving about "The Kiss Quotient" so I decided to pick it up.

Let's start with the good:
Stella Lane, the main character, was the best part. She is a econometrician working with numbers and digital algorithms and a bunch of other math stuff I'm too dumb to understand. Stella is incredibly smart and driven and loves what she does; she is also on the Autism spectrum and has Asperger's, and struggles to understand social norms and connect with people sexually. So, she makes a plan of action and hires a male escort who can practice with her. Being inside Stella's head was the most interesting part of the book, and I think it was very well done. As someone who is invested in the presence and representation of Autistic characters, I was excited to read Stella's portions.

Now, this is where things began to go downhill for me. (The rest of this is just a looooong rant, so skip to the last paragraph if you want the Sparknotes version of my thoughts)

Enter Michael Phan, the attractive, martial-arts loving escort Stella selects. Everyone compares him to a K-drama star and every few pages another group of women swoon at his feet as he walks by. It's pushed into the readers face just HOW UNBELIEVABLY HOT Michael every chance possible. Unfortunately, as hot as he is, Michael is also an ass. Yeah, that's right, I'M SAYING IT. I feel like every review of this book I see people are drooling over how amazing Michael is but...like...where??? On page 64, shortly after meeting Stella for the first time, Michael watches her bend over to write something and demonstrates, in Michael's opinion, "the only reason why a woman should wear a pencil skirt: to show off the perfectly rounded curves of her fine ass."
Yup, that's is, that's the ONLY REASON a women should wear a skirt she feels comfortable in is so the male gaze can take in her ass.
Then Michael and Stella get down to business and begin practicing and we come to what I have dubbed "The Nipple Pages". The first description we get of Stella's nipples are from Michael, and he says they are "the kind of nipples men and babies dream about."
Um, yeah, nothing says "steamy sex scene" like mentioning nipples that BABIES DREAM ABOUT. I can literally think of 4 dozen different ways to have phrased that that DO NOT include dragging a baby into your fantasy.
But Michael's not done yet, he still has more to say about these nips. He makes the astute observation that Stella should be careful with where she puts her nipples because, and I quote, "she'd poke an eye out with those things." ??? Is this....supposed to be funny? Like is this straight sex humor or something?
He then goes on to utter what might be the funniest phrase I've ever read in a romance book: "Only in his line of work was blindness by nipple assault a true hazard."
SJSSKSKSKKSKS NIPPLE ASSAULT Y'ALL I AM SCREECHING. Really, NIPPLE ASSAULT was the best phrase you could come up with?! Literally all I can picture is those women from the Austin Powers movies who have machine guns in their bras.

It was stuff like that mixed in throughout the sex scenes that made them completely bizarre to read. Michael tastes ice cream by eating it out of Stella's mouth (page 79), taking her panties and keeping them to smell later (page 198), and Michael and his friend Quan look down on women who don't have the same sexual viewpoints as them; on page 107 we get a blast of "Is she a virgin? Shit, is she saving it for marriage? Run like my mom is after you." Yeah, that's cool, because a woman who chooses for herself to wait is obviously ~cRaZy~ and needs to be avoided. Nice. Cool. Love that.

Michael also has this overbearing "alpha male" attitude that I can't stand. I feel like the best example of this is pages 144-145 when Michael comes to find Stella at work and forces her to go to dinner. When she says she hasn't eaten much, Michael quips, "I'm going to feed you" and proceeds to drive Stella to his moms. When she explicitly says to him, "I'd really like to go home" and is visibly uncomfortable with doing this, he ignores her wishes and makes her go eat.
Later, Michael repeatadly calls Stella and sends her flowers and gifts after she point blank asks him to stop. Page 304: "Each day that week, he's called and asked her out to dinner. Each day, she refused. She didn't need or want his help." THEN the ass decides (after Stella has asked him to stop contacting her) to SHOW UP outside her job. She tells him, "You need to stop all of this", to which hot Michael answers, "It's not just a little romantic? I don't have a lot of experience with courting, so you'll have to excuse me if I come across too strong."
WTF, Michael, that't not "coming across too strong" that's stalking a woman after she's told you to stop.

Michael also goes on and on and ON about "the badness inside himself". From the first chapter from Michael's POV, he keeps dropping hints about all the bad stuff his dad did and how "the same badness is now in him". Almost as much as readers are told how super hot Michael is, we're also repeatedly told how bad he is. Michael constantly is afraid of "being bad" to other people because of his dad.
But here's the thing: Michael's dad wormed his way into relationships with women, got a bunch of their money, and then ran. He did it to Michael's mom and apparently he's still off doing the same to other women. There's no hint at ALL that Michael is anything like this, but he's so caught up with the fact that he's going to be like his dad. Michael makes it seem like he's got this awful disease that makes him "bad" but literally it's just about not making bad moral choices?? These portions of the book were so overly angsty to read, and just overall poorly written.
On page 210 Michael contemplates this: "He knew people. It would be so easy to take advantage of them. There was very little preventing him from doing exactly that, nothing but a shaky code of ethics and the desire not to follow in his dad's footsteps."
Michael. A code of ethics is literally all that is keeping ANY OF US from doing bad stuff. You're not special for not wanting to to bad things?? Get off your soapbox.

Maybe some people are into boys like Michael. I don't get it. AT ALL. But everyone has a preference so I guess my preference is just way different than the majority of people who read this,
The only reason this book isn't getting a 1-star rating from me is because the Stella portions were well done and I truly liked her as a character. It was just Michael that ruined the book for me personally, and I can't help but wish Stella had ended up with someone different (and better). I think there are better romance writers out there and have no plans to read anything else by this author.

i started this expecting a light, fluffy read like the first instalment of the series. but the story turned out to be a pretty poignant portrayal of an asian american woman's plight to develop self-advocacy while navigating rigid family dynamics, filial piety, generational trauma and love in a neurotypical world.

also i did not think the author would be able to top Michael from book #1 but Quan is GOOD good iykwim

The Kiss Quotient was one of my two picks from Book of the Month Club in June. My reading stalled in May and June when life was getting in my way, work especially, so I got behind. When I started reading it yesterday, I had wondered what in the description of the book had led me to choose this one out of the five June selections. Romance and pretty detailed sex scenes might not have enticed me. There are really two protagonists in this novel, Stella Lane and Michael Larsen. What makes Stella unique is her high-spectrum autism, and most of the story is told from the omniscient point of view, limited to Stella’s inner dialog, but also, occasionally, Michael’s inner dialog. The autistic perspective was fresh and it elevated what might have been a pedestrian romance story. It’s a good beach read — not that I’m on a beach. ;-)

Nice relationship, it shows anxiety in a real way. Overall all the characters are well rounded!

Recommended: sure
For fans of a touching little romance

I feel like this is a nice, simple story. I liked it more than the first in the series, [b:The Kiss Quotient|36199084|The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient, #1)|Helen Hoang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1527983633s/36199084.jpg|57828311], but I'm probably rating it lower. The first book, I had no idea of the premise when I started reading it so it got a boost from me having legitimately no idea what might happen. With this one, I had known what it was going to be about, so there weren't really any surprises and it was just a nice smooth ride through an easy happy story.

I adore Esme, and love the way the ending was handled. She's a consistently strong and admirable character who fights for what she wants and deserves. The first five chapters had a lot of moments that made me laugh aloud in public while reading, which is always fun. I guess after that though, nothing really grabbed me, and so, three stars.

See more reviews and bookish thoughts here -> https://baileysbooks.home.blog

Recommended: sure
For someone looking for a quick read that's cute enough, for someone who has no idea about autism and this might help be more humanizing for those who have it, someone looking for some detailed and generously frequent sex scenes

Uh, well, I did not expect to be knee deep in a detailed sexy scene in the first chapters in the book. She's hiring a prostitute, and I'm sitting here waiting for the kooky mixup. But nope... he actually shows up and proceeds to seduce her as she asks. Well, at least it was decently written and they didn't make him a misogynistic ass.

The story was ok, the characters were ok, the romance was ok. What knocked it down to 3 stars for me was the lackluster conflict towards the end. It felt like the standard weak issue where if the people JUST ACTUALLY TALKED TO EACH OTHER, nothing would've even been an issue. It's hard to enjoy the story when I get to here, and I'm like "Oh they're actually both idiots."

I did appreciate that her autism wasn't necessarily her defining characteristic, even though it was a motivator for her in this aspect of her life. But she recognizes that it also makes her who she is, and has positive benefits too, like her ability to focus so clearly on things that helps make her excellent at her work. Overall that seemed very positive, as well as giving insight into how someone with autism can also enjoy sex, social situations, etc. and are just people.

Was it predictable? Kinda, yeah. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, it was a quick "good enough" kind of read. But you're also not missing out on anything huge if you skip it.

Not a fan.

Read this on a plane and while on vacation and super tired from long days of outdoor activities and it was good for that sort of distracted/uncomfortable/tired brain space but I didn’t enjoy the story much at all.

[b:The Bride Test|39338454|The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient, #2)|Helen Hoang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548428073l/39338454._SY75_.jpg|60976615]
The Kiss Quotient Book Two
I am an obnoxiously picky reader of romance. Give me a thriller any day of the week. Romance not so much. The funny thing about that though is I am a hopeless romantic. I try and try but don't often find one that captivates me. But Helen Hoang just NAILS this genre for me. I adored The Kiss Quotient so much that reading this was a no brainer. I love every beat, every story-line, every character. Her dialogue sings and the relationships feel deep and real. The story is also very relatable and that makes it so much easier and quicker to read. Hoang writes with humor, empathy, and truth. Just perfectly lovely. And as someone whose brain doesn't work like most people's, I especially love her neurodivergent leads, who are sexy and smart and wonderful. This is a gem that everyone should read. Make sure you read the Author's Note at the end

[b:The Kiss Quotient|36199084|The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient, #1)|Helen Hoang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1527983633s/36199084.jpg|57828311]

Stella Michael= Awesome Sauce!

We have a mathematical perfect match!! This one is a winner hands down!!!!!!
The Kiss Quotient was breathtaking!

So what happens when you're smart, have Asperger's and your parents want you to get married and provide a progeny of grandchildren but you aren't good at social situations or intimacy? Well, you hire an escort of course!! Stella Lane is in her thirties. She is very successful and driven. She's an economist and a workaholic. She knows her limitations and having sex is one of them. She believes that if she can conquer her fears of intimacy, she can then be in a relationship. Michael Pham is paying his mother's hospital bills by using his body as an escort. He's part Vietnamese and part Swedish. In other words, this combination makes him stunning. When his next job takes him to meet Stella, he can't help but be grateful. She fits his hot librarian fantasy to a tee. After their first meeting, he knows he's in trouble. He usually doesn't see a client twice but this time he wants to make an exception.
I love Stella and Michael together. Michael was so patient and understanding. He was also great with his whole family. He had his own insecurities and fears. I liked to think that being with Stella helped him realized he was worth it. Stella was amazing too. She tried her hardest to face her limitations. It takes great courage to try something new when you're so used to your routine and structure. I can't but fan myself at their sexy times. Let's just say WOW is an understatement. The Kiss Quotient was a wonderfully crafted novel. It's uniqueness and fascinating characters sets it apart from the rest. I found myself doing a happy dance after finishing it. The ending was just perfect! I'm crossing my fingers we get to see more characters getting their own books. The author has plenty of material. This is a new author for me but I will be back as soon as my hold at the library is available of The Bride Test!

I thought this was really great barring a few problematic moments. It bothered me that Stella was sexually harassed at work multiple times and she didn't report the guy (or have a good reason not to report him). There were some cringe-y moments when cliche levels were high (personally, I'm over a man needing to "claim" a woman and violently defend her honor). Still, this book is refreshingly different from the majority of contemporary romance novels. We have a Vietnamese-American stud and a heroine on the Autism spectrum. We have a pretty non-judgmental depiction of sex work. Plot-wise I was struck that the most graphic sex scenes happen early in the book and then taper off towards the end (most romance novels I've read are the other way around). In the end, the best review I can give is to say I'd be happy to read this author's other books and that's certainly true here.

solid "weird" girl who's actually "pretty normal girl" love story cuteness from Helen

Cute chick lit story, not too cheesy with some steamy

I ended up binging this in an evening/night, whoops. I really adored this! It's been a while since I read [b:The Bride Test|39338454|The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient, #2)|Helen Hoang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548428073l/39338454._SY75_.jpg|60976615], so I actually didn't remember where we left Quan previously... nor did I notice the shift from 3rd person in previous books to 1st in this one until the author's note at the end.

Though romance novels have both a hero and heroine, this feels primarily like Anna's story, as she learns that it's okay to be herself instead of people pleasing all the time masking who she really is. Quan has always been a steady presence in the lives of the male leads for the other two books, so it's nice to get into his head here. I'm a little bit reminded of how [a:Sonali Dev|7025918|Sonali Dev|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1397764249p2/7025918.jpg]'s romances contain a surprising plurality of serious trauma topics, though The Heart Principle manages to balance the hard (coming to terms with a diagnosis, caregiving a terminal patient) with the romance.

I also really appreciated the care put towards Anna's Chinese American background- found the family dynamics familiar (esp. re: extended family descending in time of trouble), as well as the "I'm being nitpicky about you because I care" intent which... isn't healthy, but some people do express their love and care through concern and they don't know other ways to express it. Having a failed hook up become a relationship is also familiar, heh.

Liked this one as well- #ownvoices as Helen Hoang is both autistic and Vietnamese-American, but with the additional depth of Esme trying to figure out what to do re: her immigration status and education.