I'm truly thankful for the LIbby app. It allows me to listen to books at work, in my car, and at the gym.
This second book in The Kiss Quotient was one I was really looking forward to reading. I really enjoyed The Kiss Quotient with it's quirky FMC. And I truly wanted to see Khai's story. The potential to show his reactions and ways of dealing with situations was endless and a great way to show the world what someone living with Autism may be going through. It made me want everyone around him to understand him. Unfortunately, it missed the mark in many ways but mostly in the characterization of the relationship and the missed mark on the potential slow growth of the characters.
Esmerelda was interesting enough if not a little flat. And she came across as too self-depreciating for me. That is until the end when she seems to claim herself and her worth. While this was a great thing to see, I do wish it was more developed throughout the book rather than just BAM at the end. I can understand this was supposed to be an epiphany type of thing, but it just came across as not organic to me in the character's development.
Khai's character definitely shows what it is like to be locked into routines because of your disability. We saw a bit of this in the first book, so his growth as a character in this book was what I really wanted to see. In some cases I felt like he was accepting changes a little too easily given his condition, then other times you could see the anxiety such changes were producing. He definitely went through a roller coaster of emotions. And, while I wanted to see him and his potential changes happen, I just feel like the author was asking a bit too much of his character with it.
The relationship between Khai and Esmerelda developed in an interesting way. She took him totally out of his comfort zone. I enjoyed their connection at times. And at other times it just annoyed me.
I did like the continued introduction of the Vietnamese culture. I don't know anything about this culture and it's been nice learning some of that in these books.
Overall, I just felt like there could have been so much more development of the relationship between the characters. They were pretty much hot for each other from the very start and it just didn't seem right to me.
I feel like the actual book was much longer than it should have been. There were way too many scenes where we see the characters almost connecting but then not. It just felt drawn out.
I was also not a fan of the narrator. Her tone was so low through the entire book I had to really turn my volume up to understand her.
I am interested to see the direction the author will take with Quan's story.