The Bride Test

Score: 3.5/5

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang wasn’t as enjoyable a read for me as her first book, The Kiss Quotient. While The Bride Test wasn’t nearly as steamy (Kiss Quotient was a little heavy handed with raunch at times) I found I didn’t like either of the main characters very much. Their lack of communication with each other was incredibly frustrating, and I found the whole premise of a young mother leaving her child in another country to cavort off to the USA for a summer of wooing a potential husband too far fetched even for a romance novel. I was actually quite surprised to find out that the author has two children of her own. I couldn’t imagine leaving my own baby to go halfway around the world for a ‘summer of love’.

I suppose, when I think back to The Kiss Quotient, it had equally implausible aspects to it but because both characters were so like-able and you were rooting for them to work it all out it was easier to overlook them.

I do like that the author highlights the main characters of her books as being on the autism spectrum, we could certainly use more diversity in fiction, particularly romance novels.

I listened to the audiobook on Libro.fm and I will say it was very well narrated by Emily Woo Zeller. If you’d like to listen to it you can get 3-for-1 audiobooks by using my code ‘LatestBookCrush’ here.

Synopsis:

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.