Whenever someone had asked what my favorite trope was, I never knew what to answer but this book made me realise that I've always been an absolute trash for the one where character A teaches character B how to let loose and have a good time, if you know what I mean...



This is the second audiobook I've tried and it might be soon to say this but I don't enjoy romance books in audio format. The thing is, I didn't feel the connection I usually feel while reading physically and I know it was the audiobook and not the book on itself because a lot of times I caught myself thinking "I wish I had the physical form to read this scene". It was mainly because I would have read certain things at a different pace than the narrator so maybe I'll try another one in the furute to decide if I actually prefer the physical form of romance books.

The Kiss Quotient's love story is between Stella, our smart and passionate main character, who is looking to improve her dating skills and Michael, a warm and sexy escort that's struggling with family issues and secrets. It was quite adorable and endearing to see how Stella and Michael were so understanding of each other emotions and needs. It's unbelievable to me the amount of times I could feel my face turning into the eye-hearts emoji from reading scenes between these two.

Another aspect of this book that I adored were the badass mothers both of these characters had. Let's be honest, we all make mistakes from time to time and these mothers definitely made a few but when it mattered they were there for their children, supporting and being on their side even if the whole world wasn't and just for that my heart expanded another inch while reading this book.



We get to see a lot of representation in this book, from which I didn't know much about. For instance, Michael is Vietnamese and Swedish, we get to see a lot more of vietnamese culture compared to swedish since Michael's mom is vietnamese. On this point, I loved the cooking scenes - I could picture those dishes perfectly - and to get to see some show and actors references. On the other hand, Stella has Asperger's and wanting to know what that is like was one of the main reasons why I picked this book up since it's ownvoices. Of course, I can't talk about the representation but the final message about

how autism is only a part of Stella and how she's so much more than that was wholesome and it filled me with happiness to see Stella finally realise that

.

However, something that I didn't enjoy about this book is that there was a lot of women hating on each other. Whenever a girl looked at Michael or flirted with him, she immediately became the enemy to Stella. One time she actually thought something along the lines of "agh if he has a girlfriend, I already hate her", while she was about to sleep with the bf of that hypothetical girl btw. And also, of course, Michael would get agressive and possesive of Stella too.



On a different note, this book made me so sad while reading it. During Stella and Michael's relationship there were a lot of times were both of them would think "no one has done that for me before" and I find it cute when it's something romantic but in The Kiss Quotient it was repeated so much that it made me realise neither of them had actually received love and affection because a lot of those things were things that are basic in a relationship like asking how your day was or wanting to hear you talk about something that excites you.

All in all, I would recommend this book because it's full of cute scenes and an adorable couple. Just keep in mind that it has some issues that more recent books don't (or at least I'm hoping to not see more hate on women just because in the future).