Thirty year old Stella is under pressure from her mother to settle down. Stella has Aspergers which makes her socially awkward and sex is uncomfortable for her.

“Husbands meant boyfriends. Boyfriends meant dating. Dating meant sex. She shuddered.”

But it’s a passing comment by Philip, a colleague, and just the type of man that her mum wants her to marry, that starts her thinking. He says,” a word of advice from a man who’s been around the block a few times: Get some practice. When you’re good at it, you like it better, and when you like it better, men like you better.”

If practice makes perfect, she thinks, “then maybe sex was just another interpersonal thing she needed to exert extra effort on.”

So she comes up with the idea of hiring Michael, a male escort, to teach her about sex and how to be a good girlfriend.

The premise of a Pretty Woman style role reversal (which they even joke about at one point) was what drew me to this novel.

The Kiss Quotient has quickly become one of my favourite novels this year. Not only is it a heartwarming story but boy is it steamy! I have to hand it to Helen Hoang, this book had some of the hottest sex scenes I’ve read in a while. The girl knows how to write a good sex scene, or five.

As a former teacher, I laughed out loud at Stella’s “lesson plans” with Micheal which included, ‘hand job lecture and demonstration’, ‘hand job practice’ and ‘performance review’.

The only reason I didn’t give this a full 5/5 was that i didnt quite buy into Stella suddenly losing some of autistic traits, such as those to do with the way Micheal smells and being touched by him.

What I did love, besides the smut, was the sense of community when exploring Michael’s Vietnamese heritage and the lighthearted scenes with his family and this is probably where the book works best.
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Rating:4/5
Spice rating: 5/5