The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient, #2) by Helen Hoang

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



"Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.

As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working…but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection.

With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love."





I have never read this author's first book so I really had nothing to judge this book by. I see that a lot of other reviewers have read the first book and are making comparisons to it. And not all the reviews are favorable. So in a way, I have a bit of an edge by not having anything to compare this book to.

I will not waste your time by recapping the entire storyline -what I will say though, is that the synopsis does not really do this book justice. What the synopsis fails to point out is the extreme levels of lying that went into this book. Also, the fact that what the author wanted for the protagonists to do was illegal as far as my understanding of immigration laws goes.

Having said that this book did keep me entertained; it was a bit of a potato-chip read with a very serious subject tacked on. Khai Diep the male main character has what appears to be High Functioning Autism so that imparts a more serious not to this book. Esme Tran (not her real name) is the main female and compromises her morals and ethics (in my opinion) to try to get her family a better life. If I could quote out of this book (I can't because it's an ARC) I could let you see just why I say such a thing about Esme. I certainly hope that the editors took a second glance and took that particular part out before it went to publishing.


Most of the first quarter of this book dealt with Khai dealing with a dowsing rod-like penis and it was really annoying for me after I got over the initial giggle/chuckle. The joke went on just a little too long for me. There was a lot of sexual inner-dialoguing, angsting over sex and then some bad sex, then some good sex.


Not a horrible read but not one that I would recommend to any of my reading buddies.

*ARC supplied by the publisher.


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