Book Review: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

The setup of The Kiss Quotient follows the same formula as your classic romance.

Boy meets girl, boy and girl face hardship, and so on. But The Kiss Quotient takes a new twist on those hardships they face. Girl has Asperger’s and boy is a male prostitute.

Am I the only one who instantly thinks of the Rob Schneider movie, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and starts naming off silly euphemisms for male prostitution? I’m probably the immature cad giggling in the back of the room on this one.

As someone who has a family member with Asperger’s (it’s on the autism spectrum), this book is at least somewhat personally relatable. People on the spectrum are entitled to as rich a life as any other person; having a brain whose gears turn differently doesn’t have to hold them back.

Dr. Stephen Shore said one of my favorite things and I think on it often: “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”

No two people process their thoughts in the same way, so one person’s symptoms may not apply to another. It’s a wide, beautiful spectrum with varying shades and shapes.

Going into this book, therefore, I didn’t have any preconceived notions of how Sadie was supposed to act or react. Only that she be the character, not her condition. Hoang fills out her character beautifully, showing that Sadie’s condition doesn’t make her a victim, savant, or someone who has to be handled with caution.

It’s a nice, steamy romance for the modern age.