I had the highest of expectations for this because of how much I love her first book, The Kiss Quotient. So I'm not sure if my mind had been clouded by that excellence because this was so disappointing in comparison.
Synopsis: In an attempt to have a better life for herself and her daughter, Esme agrees to a proposition from Khai's mother to fly to America for the summer and seduce her son into marriage. Khai however, has been avoiding relationships and feelings thinking he is unable to find love because he is defective. His family realizes that this is just his autism processing things differently and encourage him to pursue Esme despite his determination that he does not love anyone.
Plot: This was just so unrealistic for me to begin with. I can usually overlook some far-fetched aspects in but this was a lot and it wasn't even a plot I liked enough to overlook its impracticality. Not only was the plot nonsensical but so was their relationship. I felt no real connection between the two of them. The whole book Khai is annoyed by Esme and Esme keeps doing really questionable things in an attempt to seduce Khai. The steamy scenes were always covering some sort of issue in their connection and overall their romance was very frustrating. Even the few romantic scenes felt super forced from both sides and I didn't believe their love at all. There were also a few side plots shoved in that were great but weren't fleshed out enough to really make sense in their inclusion.
Characters: Firstly, the representation Hoang gives is always fantastic so that part was great regardless. However, I found Khai to be a really unlikeable hero. I completely understand the issues he was struggling with when it came to grief and understanding his autism, but to spend the entirety of a romance book exclaiming that he did not love Esme to her face and to everyone he got the chance too, didn't make this much of a swoony romance story to me. We saw very little of the couple actually together and actually happy. Esme was another interesting character. I appreciated her love for her family and her independence but she was also contradicting her confident character at times with the way she would handle her relationship with Khai. Both characters were way too passive and relied too much on supporting roles to move along their story making the whole narrative seemed very forced from the beginning to the end.
I really really really wanted to love this but I think my high expectations did not do this justice. I enjoyed it enough if I overlooked its issues but I, unfortunately, do not think I will be continuing with the series.
3/5 stars.
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