The Kiss Quotient

The Kiss Quotient (2018) Helen Hoang

Stella Lane has learned to function and even thrive, finding econometrics the perfect fit for her autistic brain.

I designed an algorithm to help with some of their purchase suggestions. Apparently, it’s working better than expected.”

“When is the new promotion effective?” her father asked.

“Well . . .” The hollandaise and egg yolk from her crabcakes Benedict had run together, and she attempted to separate the yellow liquids with the tip of her fork. “I didn’t accept the promotion. It was a principal econometrician position that would have had five direct reports beneath me and require much more client interaction. I just want to work on the data.”

Unfortunately, her parents thing she should find someone and fall in love and get married. But all of that sounds perfectly awful to her.

When he’d straight-out asked her if she wanted to have sex with him, she’d been caught completely off guard. Because she hated to say no, she’d said yes.

Michael Phan works once a week as an escort. His prices are high, but he has a lot of bills to pay off. And after one disastrous client, he will only see a woman a single time. But Stella isn’t anything he was expecting, and he wants to know very much why she thinks she’s terrible at all things related to sex, so he breaks his rule for her.

OMG. These two. Stella is just so very very much and although on the surface she has everything, it’s also clear that she has very little.

He walked into her office, leaned a hip against her desk, and considered her in a skeptical manner. She adjusted her glasses even though they didn’t need it. “So our star econometrician has ‘done it’ before. How many times? Three?”

No way was she going to tell him he’d guessed correctly. “None of your business, Philip.”

“I bet you just lie there and run linear recursions in your head while a man does his business. Am I right, Ms. Lane?”

Stella would totally do that if she could figure out how to input gigabytes of data into her brain, but she’d rather die than admit it.

By the way, Philip is an asshole and not the start of this piece.

Michael is the only boy in his family, and that came with a lot of expectations–many of which he refused to meet, however, familial fealty wasn’t one of them. (Hence, his bills.)

It’s very interesting how society views prostitution. This book doesn’t discuss those attitudes, but reading between the lines it’s very obvious. Also, are escort services really that easy to find?

This story made me tear up several times, and although there are multiple misunderstandings between the two, a lot of them stem from Stella’s inability to read people and catch social cues, which is completely a reasonable thing, so I wasn’t mad at either character for the misunderstandings and their inability to discuss their feelings.

This is really a lovely story, and although there is a LOT of boinking, it’s so very much more than that.

Publisher: Berkley
Rating: 8.5/10

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