The Kiss Quotient

"This book is every magical element of your favorite romantic comedy (don’t pretend like you don’t have one) enhanced with genuine contemporary complications and exquisite emotional detail. After too many terrible dates, Stella, a brilliant and successful econometrician, hires Michael, an escort, to teach her about sex and relationships. Upon this familiar foundation, Helen Hoang builds a romance which centers autism and neurodivergence, sex work, the intricacies of the Asian-American cultural experience and the diplomacy required to manage family expectations. This is the kind of story that romance readers will wordlessly hand to someone who asks why people love this genre."

"This is another topic that’s mainstream now. Stella, the heroine, is an econometrician. She’s super, super smart and she hires an escort, Michael, to teach her sex. The reason why is because she happens to be autistic—she has not had a good experience with sex at all. She wants to learn it and she feels that if she hires somebody who’s an expert, or who she perceives as an expert, then she’ll get good at it and be ready to have an actual relationship with somebody. Initially, she’s hired him to teach her sex, and there are some moments where it’s uncomfortable for her. Michael eases her through it. But then she realizes she actually needs to learn about relationships and interactions with people in general. She rewrites the proposal and says, ‘Okay, actually I want you to teach me relationships.’ “You have neurodiversity, you have the STEM heroine, and you have the escort with the heart of gold” This story is mainstream erotic romance. It could also be considered a romance with erotic elements, if you want to label it. There are scenes where they are really describing what’s happening. And it’s actually perfectly approachable because you’re going through it with Stella. It’s often very light. So you have neurodiversity, you have the STEM heroine, and you have the escort with the heart of gold—so you’ve got tropes going on with him. As I read it, I kept thinking about how Stella’s like all of us, she just processes things in her own way. As she says in the book, she’s just her. Her autism isn’t a label; it’s just who she is. She uses lists; she sets boundaries. But Michael sets boundaries, too. Hoang puts us in the analytical mind of her heroine and allows us to understand her. The way that Stella is depicted, we believe why Michael is captivated by her and falls in love with her. Her vulnerability is a universal thing. Helen Hoang goes to great lengths to show us that Stella lives in a world that is often misunderstood. People are easily used when they are vulnerable or are in a situation where they don’t understand what is going on. For Stella to go through these lessons is actually a pretty smart way of teaching herself how to receive something good instead of it just being merely a function. Stella and Michael are beyond deserving of something good. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . What I also really loved about The Kiss Quotient is the fact that it’s a flipped Pretty Woman . I really enjoyed that aspect of it a lot and I hope that readers will as well. It’s just really, really well done. Helen Hoang does such a great job with her writing. It isn’t like any other book out there, it really is in its own category. Right now, I couldn’t do a read-alike for it. Which is a good thing."