I really enjoyed this book! Its so refreshing to find a truly sweet, unproblematic romance book.
The Kiss Quotient is about a woman called Stella who has Asperger's Syndrome. She loves routine, struggles with loud sounds or smells, and is very awkward with social situations. Her mother keeps pressuring her to find a husband, but Stella's previous sexual experiences have been very negative. She decides she needs help, and so she hires a male escort to teach her. She gets Michael.
Michael is an American-Vietnamese man, and we find out that he does escorting once a week to pay for bills that his family have. He keeps his escorting a complete secret, and has a rule - he will only see a client once. Except that doesn't work with Stella, because she wants a long term contract with him.
I will warn you now - this book has graphic sex scenes. If you're uncomfortable with that it may not be the book for you. However, if you're cool with it, then you'll enjoy how wonderfully un-problematic they are. So many romance books cross the line of consent with a dominant 'alpha-male' type (think Fifty Shades of Grey), but this book doesn't do that. At all. The lines of consent are so clear - when Stella struggles because of her autism, Michael backs off straight away. Their intimacy is so warm and loving and I adored it.
I also loved that Stella is so different from a lot of female characters - she works in a STEM field and is really good at it. She makes a lot of money and isn't afraid to admit that. Michael's family dynamic was lovely to see too. I enjoyed the diversity and representation (its own voices - Helen Hoang has Asperger's herself!).
My reason for knocking off a star is this book does feature one of my least favourite tropes - miscommunication - but in fairness, we know Stella struggles with that, so it made sense as part of the story. I just wish characters would see how OBVIOUS it is when someone likes them. So much unnecessary confusion.
But overall a really lovely romance story, one I think needs to get a lot of attention!
The Kiss Quotient is about a woman called Stella who has Asperger's Syndrome. She loves routine, struggles with loud sounds or smells, and is very awkward with social situations. Her mother keeps pressuring her to find a husband, but Stella's previous sexual experiences have been very negative. She decides she needs help, and so she hires a male escort to teach her. She gets Michael.
Michael is an American-Vietnamese man, and we find out that he does escorting once a week to pay for bills that his family have. He keeps his escorting a complete secret, and has a rule - he will only see a client once. Except that doesn't work with Stella, because she wants a long term contract with him.
I will warn you now - this book has graphic sex scenes. If you're uncomfortable with that it may not be the book for you. However, if you're cool with it, then you'll enjoy how wonderfully un-problematic they are. So many romance books cross the line of consent with a dominant 'alpha-male' type (think Fifty Shades of Grey), but this book doesn't do that. At all. The lines of consent are so clear - when Stella struggles because of her autism, Michael backs off straight away. Their intimacy is so warm and loving and I adored it.
I also loved that Stella is so different from a lot of female characters - she works in a STEM field and is really good at it. She makes a lot of money and isn't afraid to admit that. Michael's family dynamic was lovely to see too. I enjoyed the diversity and representation (its own voices - Helen Hoang has Asperger's herself!).
My reason for knocking off a star is this book does feature one of my least favourite tropes - miscommunication - but in fairness, we know Stella struggles with that, so it made sense as part of the story. I just wish characters would see how OBVIOUS it is when someone likes them. So much unnecessary confusion.
But overall a really lovely romance story, one I think needs to get a lot of attention!