The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient, #2) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

May 08, 2020 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, american-fiction, asia-fiction, immigration, romance, disability, vietnam

I quite enjoyed this second book in The Kiss Quotient series. In this follow-up to The Kiss Quotient, we follow Khai, a minor character from the first book, and Esme (real name My - more on that below). Khai is a numbers whiz who co-owns a tech firm, and, as readers will remember from The Kiss Quotient, is on the autism spectrum. Esme is a single mom and a cleaner at a hotel in Vietnam. When Khai's mom's trip to find a bride on Khai's behalf (and without his permission) fails, through a chance m I quite enjoyed this second book in The Kiss Quotient series. In this follow-up to The Kiss Quotient, we follow Khai, a minor character from the first book, and Esme (real name My - more on that below). Khai is a numbers whiz who co-owns a tech firm, and, as readers will remember from The Kiss Quotient, is on the autism spectrum. Esme is a single mom and a cleaner at a hotel in Vietnam. When Khai's mom's trip to find a bride on Khai's behalf (and without his permission) fails, through a chance meeting, Esme impresses her and ends up on a plane to the US as a test to see if they'll hit it off. Khai is understandably furious when his mother proposes that Esme lives with him for the summer, but it sets up a nice forced proximity situation for Hoang to explore, and along the way, readers get to delve back into what romance looks like for people with autism, as well as the new and additional themes of recent immigrant life, single parenthood, and global wealth disparities. It's a fun read.

I did have a couple of moments where I thought it could have been better, though. Esme is whisked away from Vietnam to a fantasy of a very rich potential suitor dropping out of the sky, and there are problems with that dynamic, like the fact that it would be such a given that a person, even one who struggled to meet basic needs, would necessarily, immediately, jump at such a chance. And she doesn't exactly jump immediately at it, but the decision is painted as a fairy tale, and there's no real serious mention of Esme's inevitable, major culture shock and homesickness. It's also pretty unrealistic that her English would be as good as it is and that it would improve as rapidly as it does given her background; this language adds to the overly-rosy portrait of immigrant life. And finally, she changes her name, which is something that a lot of immigrants do, but this fairly major identity event is also treated with all the hope and none of the loss of what that would really be like to do for someone who's changing their name in order to fit in better, not because they want to their name to better conform to their identity. Put together, these three aspects of Esme's story paint a very idyllic portrait of immigrant life in the US and exacerbate incomplete images people have of "shithole countries," which are, in practice most of the countries of the world; overall, these images are pretty stereotypical, and it would be better for both immigrants to the US and for the majority of USAmericans who will never travel outside of the US if portraits of immigrants in literature were a bit more complete. ...more

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