Review:
Stella is an econometrician with Asperger's who'd rather spend her weekends at work than go on dates. However, her mother keeps setting her up with people and making noises about wanting grandchildren, so Stella tries to accommodate her. A comment from a coworker prompts her to decide that the solution to her problem (getting and keeping a satisfactory guy) is for her to become better at sex, so she does some research, finds a well-rated escort service, and sets up an appointment with Michael, figuring that it'd be best for her to learn from a professional.
One day a week, Michael has sex with women in order to pay his mom's medical bills. Neither his family nor his friends know what he's doing, and he wants to keep it that way. Stella is a surprise, though - he finds himself genuinely attracted to her and baffled at her request for instruction on being better at sex. He figures he can at least show her a good time and soon finds himself throwing his usual "no repeat appointments" rule out the window.
I was initially going to skip this book, since what I really wanted to read was the second book in this series, The Bride Test, which stars Khai, Michael's autistic cousin. However, I guilt-tripped myself into reading the series in order, and I'm glad I did, because The Kiss Quotient was much more enjoyable than I expected it to be.
I am painfully aware that my description of the book, now that I've read it, still doesn't sound particularly appealing to me. It makes no sense, especially considering that one of the first things I did after finishing this was turn right back to Chapter 2 and reread my favorite parts of the book, which were pretty much any scene involving both Stella and Michael. Even if I can't figure out the right way to describe it, this was such an enjoyable read.
One of the things I was initially worried about was that Stella would come across as sex averse, "cured" by Michael's talent in bed. A warning, as far as this aspect goes: Stella wasn't sex averse so much as dealing with the trauma of having rapey dates force themselves on her (one of the reasons I began my reread with Chapter 2 rather than Chapter 1, although there's an on-page forced kiss later in the book). She didn't recognize what her previous dates did as rape and instead figured that her experiences were terrible because of something she was doing wrong. Michael thankfully had a much better grasp of consent than Stella's past dates.
I loved how into Stella Michael was right from the start. Still, this didn't mean things went 100% smoothly for them, and both of them spent a large chunk of the book worried that the other person wouldn't love them if they knew everything about them. Stella didn't tell Michael she had Asperger's, which turned into a bit of an issue when they started going on dates - at one point she had sensory overload but still didn't want to tell him why she'd suddenly needed to leave, and her first time meeting Michael's family was horrible. It was a relief when Stella went to apologize and everyone was willing to try a fresh start.
Michael, meanwhile, had some emotional issues related to his dad. While I could sort of understand why he was so hung up on that, the more he and Stella got to know each other, the more frustrating his worries became. I seriously doubt his father worried about hurting and using people to the degree that Michael worried about potentially doing it, so he was already a few steps ahead there.
There were a few things I thought would be issues that just...weren't. Like Stella's very expensive effort to take some worries off of Michael's shoulders (maybe the fact that it wasn't just centered on him made it less shocking and grand gesture-ish?). Or some of the things Michael did when he learned Stella was autistic and she still didn't know he knew. They were good and helpful things, but still - she was so adamant about people not changing things to accommodate her that I thought she'd react more when she finally found out he knew.
I just realized I never mentioned this, but Michael is half Vietnamese (his mother) and half Swedish (his father). Except for the first visit, I enjoyed Stella's interactions with Michael's family, and I thought her efforts at proper home-visiting etiquette were sweet. That said, I thought it was a bit odd how not awkward Michael's "be honest, you're a K-drama fan who picked me because I look like Daniel Henney" moment with Stella was, because it really felt like it should have been awkward. I think that's part of why I spent a good chunk of the book assuming Stella was also Asian, but apparently she wasn't?
I wasn't going to read the next book before writing this review, but then I downloaded Book 2 so I'd have something to read during bad weather and my willpower evaporated. Individually, the characters in that book worked better for me, although I still prefer the romance in The Kiss Quotient. I wish my library had the third book, but it's looking like I may have to buy that myself - since I suspect I'll enjoy it at least as much as the first two, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The ladies' man types are not normally my thing, but Quan is the best older brother and I suspect he'll be a wonderful romance hero.
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