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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
i will never see sweet potatoes the same way ever again
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i liked the first ~60% of this book. it wasn’t like classics level or anything but it was fun, light, pretty easy to read. idk if i just woke up more on the latter half or if the book just got 50x faster, and the writing got 1000000x worse. The miscommunication trope is already awful but the way it’s done here like ohhhh boy. The 1 star is for what a great reminder this was of the danger in hating yourself and trying to be with someone and believe they don’t hate you too. like ohh girl you look dumb let’s not be so self involved. cutting down on my “would you still love me if” numbers TREMENDOUSLY. Michael’s repeated use of my stella and the stupidity of like oh i came in my pants as a grown man thinking about how much i miss her. or the crazy just nonsensical descriptions of their feelings on each other their rightness. HATED IT!!!!!! like im actually baffled by how this book plummeted in my eyes i want to go back in time to stop myself from reading it sorta. there is chemistry between the characters and there is more to them than sex or occupation or whatever but i feel the real substance of the book was missing. the larger conflicts/ minutiae of their problems gets explicitly brought up and then also resolved in the span of like 2 seconds!!! it’s like we’re WORKING on ourselves, OOP! CLOCKING OUT!!!!! it just didn’t make sense. i’m going to decide to change this fundamental flaw of mine all in one go!
i feel like the “nina nina just vote” girl looking over this review like WOW i didn’t know i was going to be this harsh
i feel like the “nina nina just vote” girl looking over this review like WOW i didn’t know i was going to be this harsh
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I have thoughts. Review coming
This is such a sweet book that highlights just how much care and devotion each of us deserves in a romantic relationship and how it is important that these things go both ways. Stella and Michael were both such a lovable characters that you couldn’t help but cheer them on from the moment they met. Even though it was set up as Michael teaching Stella how to be in a romantic relationship, I loved how the lessons went both ways, with each character getting the chance to learn valuable lessons from each other.
I also loved how the author added diversity by showing Stella’s struggles as an autistic working woman. This is not a dynamic I had read before and after I learned of the author’s own struggles with autism, the text took on a much deeper and more heartfelt meeting. Such a sweet story overall, and I can’t wait to read more from this author.
I also loved how the author added diversity by showing Stella’s struggles as an autistic working woman. This is not a dynamic I had read before and after I learned of the author’s own struggles with autism, the text took on a much deeper and more heartfelt meeting. Such a sweet story overall, and I can’t wait to read more from this author.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2024:
I changed my mind. I liked this book a lot and still think about it all these years later!
2022 review:
Feel like I was sold a false bill of goods on the whole “autistic female in STEM lead” angle. This book was silly, silly, silly. And juvenile. I could practically hear the 7th grade chorus of “oooooohs” during all of those spicy scenes. It makes sense that a 7th grader would get the most out of this (sorry, unknowing parents, that this book absolutely skyrocketed thanks to TikTok, age demo 10-14), since this is basically elevated YA.
Anyway. I know this is like a gender-flipped Pretty Woman, but does anyone even stop to think about how sad the “hooker with a heart of gold” stories really are? Point being, the material conditions that lead people to sex work are sad, even if the lead is Julia Roberts, or in this case, a sexy, sensitive wasian.
I changed my mind. I liked this book a lot and still think about it all these years later!
2022 review:
Feel like I was sold a false bill of goods on the whole “autistic female in STEM lead” angle. This book was silly, silly, silly. And juvenile. I could practically hear the 7th grade chorus of “oooooohs” during all of those spicy scenes. It makes sense that a 7th grader would get the most out of this (sorry, unknowing parents, that this book absolutely skyrocketed thanks to TikTok, age demo 10-14), since this is basically elevated YA.
Anyway. I know this is like a gender-flipped Pretty Woman, but does anyone even stop to think about how sad the “hooker with a heart of gold” stories really are? Point being, the material conditions that lead people to sex work are sad, even if the lead is Julia Roberts, or in this case, a sexy, sensitive wasian.
Finished it in a day, the representation of ASD in women was refreshing and it is a lovely romance novel.
I'm so happy to have gotten this book on my radar. I feel like a broken record, but I swear I don't normally like contemporary romance. I usually find them predictable, and worse boring.
However, this does the contemporary genre good. It is fresh, funny, hot, and I love a book that plays with traditional gender norms. Yay gender swapped Pretty Woman! I don't want to suggest that that is all this is. It's more than a reboot. This novel's heroine is autistic and for the life of me I cannot think of another book that I've read that has a diagnosed/self-identifying autistic female character. Autism so frequently seems like a male disorder because that's what we see in media and I am so much more readily attuned to the male symptoms/experience. What a service to her readers that Hoang has written a novel with a character based on her own perceptions as an autistic woman.
The portrayal of Michael as biracial and his Vietnamese family was also riveting. So often the romantic hero is one dimensional and driven solely by how he relates to the female character. It's refreshing to see a well rounded male protagonist who has a personality, past, friends, family, and work life outside of the key romance.
This book gets all the stars!
Thanks so much to NetGalley and Berkley for the copy I received for review.
#thekissquotient #netgalley
However, this does the contemporary genre good. It is fresh, funny, hot, and I love a book that plays with traditional gender norms. Yay gender swapped Pretty Woman! I don't want to suggest that that is all this is. It's more than a reboot. This novel's heroine is autistic and for the life of me I cannot think of another book that I've read that has a diagnosed/self-identifying autistic female character. Autism so frequently seems like a male disorder because that's what we see in media and I am so much more readily attuned to the male symptoms/experience. What a service to her readers that Hoang has written a novel with a character based on her own perceptions as an autistic woman.
The portrayal of Michael as biracial and his Vietnamese family was also riveting. So often the romantic hero is one dimensional and driven solely by how he relates to the female character. It's refreshing to see a well rounded male protagonist who has a personality, past, friends, family, and work life outside of the key romance.
This book gets all the stars!
Thanks so much to NetGalley and Berkley for the copy I received for review.
#thekissquotient #netgalley
i could not get enough of this book, and that is very apparent from the speed in which i read it 😂 i just couldn’t put it down!
i loved both michael and stella individually, but together they just had such amazing chemistry! i loved how understanding and patient michael was! i also really liked that we got to see his whole family - i think seeing him interact with his mother, his sisters and his cousins really fleshed out his character even more
when i finished it, i was thinking it was a five star read, but now that i’ve thought about it a little bit more, i think i’m bumping it down to a 4.5, just because i wanted some more emotional depth to stella and michael’s relationship, and the miscommunication near the end got on my nerves a little bit
if you loved this one, i would recommend you check out yes and i love you by roni loren!
i loved both michael and stella individually, but together they just had such amazing chemistry! i loved how understanding and patient michael was! i also really liked that we got to see his whole family - i think seeing him interact with his mother, his sisters and his cousins really fleshed out his character even more
when i finished it, i was thinking it was a five star read, but now that i’ve thought about it a little bit more, i think i’m bumping it down to a 4.5, just because i wanted some more emotional depth to stella and michael’s relationship, and the miscommunication near the end got on my nerves a little bit
if you loved this one, i would recommend you check out yes and i love you by roni loren!