Book Review: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

An Own Voices Review for an Own Voices Books.


It's high time for Stella Lane to settle down and find a husband - or so her mother tells her. This is no easy task for a wealthy, successful woman like Stella, who also happens to have Asperger's. Analyzing data is easy; handling the awkwardness of one-on-one dates is hard. To overcome her lack of dating experience, Stella decides to hire a male escort to teach her how to be a good girlfriend.

Faced with mounting bills, Michael decides to use his good looks and charm to make extra cash on the side. He has a very firm no repeat customer policy, but he's tempted to bend that rule when Stella approaches him with an unconventional proposal.

The more time they spend together, the harder Michael falls for this disarming woman with a beautiful mind, and Stella discovers that love defies logic.

This book was bigged up by someone who had bigged up another book that I had really enjoyed, so I decided to give this book a chance. It has autistic protagonist by autistic author and I'm autistic. This could be fun. Yeah, turns out that own voices doesn't mean good rep, sometimes it's means internal ableism.

Firstly, before we get into this. This book is written in close third person, changing from following Stella to Michael, firstly by chapter then when ever. This got confusing while listening to audiobook which is how I ended up consuming most of this book, because girl had a deadline and things to do. So now I'm going to share quotes.

I've already said I have some issues with Hoang's choices. Firstly, the good: The autism is claimed straights away in the first chapter; Her traits are shown through behaviour and her choices instead of just being stated which is a usual problem I see with Autistic/disabled characters.This is all done really well and is great representation. Except this a romance book with classic misunderstanding set up. Michael has Daddy Issues and Stella has Autism. *slow blink*

I'm trying not to spoil things, but I might do so with explaining my issue with how Hoang goes about treating this. Being made to feel bad about your Autism is a typical experience for people on the spectrum, but I just don't like the way Hoang goes about it and how Stella's character arc happens.

There's is this one line and I hate it "She wasn't a robot or a disabled autistic girl." Oh, Hoang why did you write this? This is an ableist statement. The implication here being that being disabled is a bad thing, which I get from everywhere. I know where you are and the character is meant to be coming from. If Stella had true fuck society moment then I could let this go as Stella denying herself in a moment of weakness, but all we do get a line about not changing for men. It's just so small after paragraphs of all this terrible, self hate shit.

Autism being disability gets debated a lot, but we definitely face the same problems as other Disabled people. We face constant ableism through weird notions and inspiration porn, the world is not set up for us. I know that scene could also be read as her being defiant but I don't think that's better. Disabled being treated as dirty word is such a problem, leads to a lot people denying themself the help they need and could get.

I don't need that from an own voices book or anywhere. I wonder if Hoang did have this book sensitive read for Autism or not, which I know might seem like a weird thing for an own voices writer to do, but with Autism being such a varied Disorder, I think it something that all authors should do and I know that I will do that if I ever finish anything instead of just dabbling.

Hoang started writing this book before she had discovered she was autistic, so perhaps her previous notions about what Autism have slipped into this book. This book was always going to be how someone's autism made them hire an escort. I do think it could have worked, if more Stella wanted to get more experience for her own sake and not for her mother. I don't think this novel is trash or anything, my feeling after finishing this book was wanting to have a conversation with Helen Hoang about internal ableism. I think things could have been done better. I just really hated spark of the plot, like if Stella had recognized she had no idea what she was doing when it came to sex herself instead of an obvious arsehole giving her the idea. The thing I want is bad arse Autistic Female Protagonist, mainly because all we get is the self-haters that fall to society pressure. I know we all fall to Society Pressure sometimes, I'm just saying what I want. I just wish Hoang attitude in her Author Note made into this book: "When I wrote The Kiss Quotient, I became myself, and I’ve been unapologetically myself ever since. Sometimes instead of confining you, a label can set you free." That's great message, but it not in the book so few people read author notes or acknowledgements and they straight up don't appear in the audiobook versions (including this one, a few ones do have them).

I also really hated that the Autism was a big secret to Michael, when they relationship was meant to be professional. Maybe with being newly diagnosed Hoang hasn't experienced that in hiring a professional service it's better to tell them, things go more  smoothly or you have that moment of telling someone you're autistic and get that the dumb response they give.

Now that I've wrote a novel about Autism Rep, let's
move on.

This book was never for me. It just has too much sex for my liking. The UK cover really highlights what this book is actually like compare to the Rom-Com cover the US one has (I just request it when I saw it, without realising it listed as Exotica on UK NetGalley, the person told me about it, did so in a way that specify that it wasn't exotica. I probably would have still requested it but I would have know what I was walking into). I got real bored of all the sex scenes. I like to read this stuff sometimes, but just scene after scene doesn't do it for me. I know escort but I thought it would be emotions mostly. Not sex mostly. Like role reversed Pretty Woman. There's big chunks where that's all that happens. I didn't like some of the scenes anyway. Like this beautiful quote: "She had the kind of nipples men and babies dream about." Michael would say/think stuff that just took me right out what's happening to think gross. I guess it depends on what you're into and what words turn you right off. For me, it's mentioning children and demanding that animal names are the right names for genitalia. For me, it's on the same level as "Flower".

The audiobook narrator was fine. Sometimes she was slip into a impression of Sheldon Cooper, which I think is honestly my hang up because Autistic people can be quite monotone sometimes and it could just be her natural accent with it. It's a decent way to experience the book if you like audiobooks.

So characters, this book is terrible people. Stella is very autistic. That is all she is. Shit, we're back to Autism rep. Okay, she has some interests outside of being good at seeing patterns and maths stuff. Her and Michael both like martial art films. She likes Korean dramas as well, apparently Michael looks like an actor who was disappointingly not that hot. Maybe he's really a good actor so is hot in film, attractiveness is subjected so that the chance you take when you mention a look-a-like by name. This is a romance so not a much is done with characters outside of relationships. Yeah, that's kinda sad as a trait of romances. Anyway, the relationship is fine. Fine.

I like Michael's family. They're not really characters, there's so many of them and we don't spend time with them a lot but I like them. 

So the actual real unfun part of this book for me. Yeah, it wasn't fully the autistic rep being wack at times.

This being autism book, society being fucked is on show sometimes. But then there's Philip James, a Sexual Harassment case waiting to happening, is introduced by dating an intern and asking Stella if she is a virgin. bliuahtgruie;ojgduityl4w5kghrjbn. He's in the whole book, he's an arsehole the whole book, there's this moment where I think Stella is going to finally call him out on it, but she doesn't. He even gets a hint at happy ending which is just baffling. The way his character is treated is just baffling. I just don't know why he wasn't a secret arsehole or arsehole with a heart of gold (okay, I actually like those characters trope) if that was the way Stella was going to treat him. Spoilers and trigger warnings he kisses Stella when she pressed up against a car, her having just say no to a date with him and that she has a boyfriend all indicates of not having consent. So yay, sexual assault, which makes me think of a terrible book where the autistic protagonist is also repeatedly sexually assaulted. It's treated worst in that book, but this is a definitely terrible. I know straight smuty romance books do tend to have these terrible tropes where consent is blurred, but she washes her mouth out and Michael hits the guy. Now, for the worst part is that Stella never treats him like a guy who just sexually assaulted her. She goes on a date with him after that and then he forces himself on her again. You can have characters that are shitty person, but not when the heroine ignores all this terrible shit he does. It is treat as though, he a fine fellow who just not right for Stella, instead of you know a sexual predator. Anyway, I don't like that in books and just brafiawqqqqqqqqqqqqwweeeeng.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Internal Ableism. The self-hate just was not fun to read through. It just has all these terrible implications, even with this being very much adult book, it's just not fun or healthy.I want to support Autistic writers out there giving own voice characters out into the world, but I just didn't enjoy this. Even with not being a big exotica fan, and acknowledging tropes, it just doesn't work for me. I guess if you read this book, maybe just think about the internal Ablelism that's displayed. I would pick up Hoang's work again. I know her next book has an Autistic protagonist as well, and maybe writing it being more aware that stereotypes about Autism ain't true. Autism was too much of the plot to ever be fun.