{Release Day Review} The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient #2) by Helen Hoang (@HHoangWrites @BerkleyRomance)

Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.

As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working…but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection.

With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love.

​At twenty-three, Esmeralda Tran isn’t afraid of hard work. It didn’t matter if she was sweeping a floor, she did everything with pride.  And the one thing that inspired her to shine so bright was a chance at a better life – for her, her family and her young daughter. 
 
So when an elegant stranger approaches her with an opportunity to go to America, she’s both skeptical and yet full of hope.  In exchange for one summer, she must try to get the stranger’s son to marry her – and from just the pictures of him – it would be far from a hardship. 
 
But when she steps off the plane in San Francisco, she knows immediately that not only is her future on the line, but so is her heart.

With each step through the airport, words pounded in Khai’s head. What. Had. His. Mom. Been. Thinking.

His mail-order bride was nothing like he’d expected—which was a younger replica of his mom, complete with the matching sweat suits and the sriracha and hoisin sauce she always kept in her purse. That, he could have handled. But this girl, Esme, looked like a Playboy bunny. She lacked the trademark platinum hair, but the rest of her fit the description. What did you do with a Playboy bunny? Aside from sex. Not that he was thinking about sex. 

Khai Diep was happy.  Or at least he thought so.  He went to work, hung out with family and came home.  He had no plans to settle down and get married – regardless of how much his mother pressured him to.  
 
In her unrelenting quest to pair him off, she managed to convince an unsuspecting young girl to come to America to live with him.  He’s just going to get through the summer and then send her right back home. 
 
All of that changes the very minute that he sees her.
 
Esme is far from what he pictured in his head and there is just something about this tiny girl and her steely determination that upends his life in the very best of ways.

​But now that he’s discovered how special truly she is, he’s certain that she deserves more than a man who is incapable of love.

How did you change your life when you were trapped like this? Her history didn’t define her. Her origins didn’t define her. At least, they shouldn’t. She could be more, if she had a chance.
​ 
But people didn’t see who she was inside. They didn’t know. And she had no way to show them without an opportunity.

After reading this. it's now clear to me that the reason I adore Helen’s books so much is that her characters are so ALIVE!

Not only are they emotionally complex, but they’re also hysterically funny and positively soul-inspiring.  This unexpected combination was especially true for Esme. She sparked such a rare combination of courage and compassion that I couldn’t help but fall under her spell. 

​The Bride Test is another instant classic that far exceeds all of the hype. And I’m a firm believer… 

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