The Kiss Quotient
by Helen Hoang
Contemporary Romance
317 pages
Published June 2018

This was one of three books I got through Book of the Month this month – the other two were The Book of Essie and When Katie Met Cassidy. I’m reviewing this today instead of another Pride Month read because today is Autistic Pride Day! The Kiss Quotient both stars and is written by a woman on the autistic spectrum, so I thought today would be a fitting day to tell you about it!

So The Kiss Quotient is basically a gender-swapped Pretty Woman, as Hoang mentions in the Author’s Note. Our heroine, Stella Lane, books an escort to teach her about sex. Stella is thirty years old, has only had sex a couple of times, never enjoyed it, and is worried about not being good at it and therefore not being able to get or keep a boyfriend. She’s an incredibly successful econometrician, or someone who uses data and statistics to model and predict economic trends, in her case predicting what people will want to buy from clients. (She’s the kind of person responsible for those “Amazon started marketing baby products to me before I even knew I was pregnant!” incidents.) So she has more money than she knows what to do with, and offers Michael, an escort, $50,000 a month to teach her about sex and relationships.

Because this is a romance, we know what’s going to happen here. They fall in love with each other, but are sure that for the other one it’s just a business arrangement.

I was NOT expecting this book to be as explicit as it is! I think because it is a Book of the Month, I wasn’t expecting the standard trope of romance book with hot sex scenes. But that’s what I got! I can’t say I’m unhappy with that – god knows I like my guilty pleasure romance smut – but it was definitely unexpected. I’m not sure why it surprised me. The book’s premise is all about Stella wanting to learn about sex; if that wasn’t conducted on screen we’d lose a third of the book!

A sequel has already been announced, and it’s about the other autistic character in the book, the hero’s best friend’s little brother, Khai, who we only see in one scene. Who I’d also like to know more about is the best friend, Quan! So I’m holding out hope for a third book. (Update: a third book is on Goodreads, but without a title or synopsis. Hopefully it’s Quan! I have read and reviewed Khai’s book, The Bride Test.)

One last thing that I found important – in the Author’s Note, Hoang mentions her daughter was diagnosed with AS, and in reading about Autism, she realized she is also on the spectrum. This is something I’ve seen in three different books now. It’s so common for women, especially, to go undiagnosed. They might be better at modelling allistic (non-autistic) behavior, or their special interests might be more “acceptable” to allistics, or sometimes they just get looked at as introverts when they’re young instead of getting the help they might need. This is starting to change, as researchers and doctors are realizing Autism presents differently in women. But it seems autistic adult women are often discovering they’re autistic through a diagnosis of their children. I found that interesting.

I did really enjoy this book. I think it’s a great debut novel, and a great romance. I really like the recent trend of more diversity in lead characters in romance novels. Bring on the people of color! More disabled main characters! There’s got to be a romance somewhere with a deaf heroine, right? (Update 2: This is Kind of An Epic Love Story has a deaf hero.) More alternative sexualities and relationship structures! Everyone, everywhere, wants to be loved, and I want to read about it. The thing is, I’m sure these books exist, but they don’t get the kind of publicity they need for people to know about them. We have to actually go looking for them. I feel like I’ve been better about that recently, but it’s definitely a place where the publication industry could improve.

You can find my full list of Autism books, most of them by Autistic authors, here.

From the cover of The Kiss Quotient:

Stella Lane 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 or that 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. With the looks of a K-drama star and the martial arts moves to match, the Vietnamese-Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer. And when she comes up with a lesson plan, he proves willing to help her check off all the boxes – from foreplay to more-than-missionary position.

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but to crave all of the other things he’s making her feel. 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…