Review: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

The Kiss Quotient
by Helen Hoang
Series: The Kiss Quotient #1
Published by Penguin, Berkley on June 5, 2018
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Point of View:Alternating Third Person
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Add It: Goodreads

A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but to crave all the other things he's making her feel. Soon, their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

It took me a really long time to read The Kiss Quotient and when I finally did, I wanted to kick myself in the tits because it was the most complete romance that I’ve read in a long time. Sure, I read and gave some 5 stars already this year but those books weren’t complete stories. Burn for Me was amazing and I adored it to pieces but the beginning was a little slow and there was so much information that it took me a while to figure things out but that wasn’t the case with The Kiss Quotient. Right from the very beginning, I was hooked.

There were a lot of things that I wasn’t prepared for when we meet Stella Lane. She’s a high functioning autistic heroine and that’s a huge part of her and a big part of the story. The author does a great job of making the reader understand what a person with Aspergers goes through and lives with every day. She doesn’t bring it up and then brush it under the rug. The reader lives through Stella’s days and in her thoughts and I couldn’t help but connect with her. There was never any middle ground with her, she was either indifferent or obsessed and I found that understanding these things about Stella helped me to care about her a lot deeper than I thought I would.

“All the things that make you different make you perfect.”

My book boyfriend for this week goes straight to Michael Phan because he was everything that I hoped for and everything that I wish for in real life. I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t prepared to like a male escort hero as much as I did for reasons I don’t even know but Helen Hoang gave Michael a story that anybody would come to love.

There’s a lot to love about Michael. He had dreams and he aspirations that he had to put on hold so that he could pick up the broken pieces of his family that his father left behind. He became the head of his family and took that position very seriously. He did whatever needed to be done to make sure that everyone he loved was safe, protected and well cared for. He put himself last at every turn and when Stella came into his life, he tried to do the same with her.

I loved seeing Michael fall in love with Stella because it was slow and it was sure. He understood Stella a lot more than anyone else did and he loved every single thing about her. He was patient with her and he was careful with her and he just won me over at every turn.

Here’s who I pictured as Michael Phan and I already know that it’s perfect because it’s mentioned in the book that he was a dead ringer for Daniel Henney and…*swoon*

Overall, this was an amazing story about a high functioning autistic heroine and the male escort that fell in love with her. This Pretty Woman storyline worked its magic on me and I have every confidence that it will do the same to you. Give it a try, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Final Grade

5 out of 5

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The Kiss Quotient Series

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