“Everyone deserved to love and be loved back. The Bride Test is a love story, but it’s also so much more. My list of elements to admire in this one included: seeing Esme learning to navigate a US airport without full grasp of the English language seeing Khai’s perspective on how autism affects his emotions seeing Esme care for Khai with the same enthusiasm both before and after she knew about his diagnosis, without letting him use the autism as an excuse when he does something hurtful and seeing Quan look out for his younger brother (Khai) in a patient and considerate way. I’m not a huge fan of romance books in general, so I like to be able to pick up a book from that genre that’s also going to offer insight into aspects of life that I’m not so familiar with.

Right off the bat, I knew I was going to appreciate the exact same things about this book that I did with The Kiss Quotient it’s wonderful to encounter a romance that offers such great representation- the man is autistic, he is American but his family is from Vietnam, and the woman is fully Vietnamese, unmarried with a child. People might look down on her, but she was making her way with as much integrity as she could with limited options.” “She wasn’t impressive in any way you could see or measure, but she had that fire. Their families seem eager to push the two of them together, but can they admit their feelings for each other in time to wed before Esme’s travel visa expires? Then she meets Khai- a kind, autistic man who doesn’t believe himself capable of love. Esme isn’t sure she’ll manage to convince anyone to marry her, but she does want to go to California to search for her long lost father, and decides to take a chance.

At the hotel, she meets a bold woman who is wife hunting for her grown son, Khai, who lives in America and has no idea what his mother is planning. In the novel, Esme (or Mý) is working a steady- if somewhat undesirable- cleaning job at a Vietnam hotel to support herself, her mother, grandmother, and small daughter. I managed to get my hands on a copy early this month. Last year I read Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient in a rare romance mood, and though I had a few qualms with it about miscommunication and lack of consent, I thought it showed a lot of promise and immediately added The Bride Test, Hoang’s second (and related) novel, to my TBR.

The bride test novel