Narrated by Carly Robins
Helen Hoang’s début contemporary romance, The Kiss Quotient, has been on my radar ever since it came out earlier this year, but it’s showing up on so many “Best Books of 2018” lists that I decided I really should get around to listening to it! It’s a very accomplished piece of work – sexy, funny and moving, it’s an enjoyable story that pulled me in from the start and kept me engaged thanks, in part, to the strong characterisations and excellent narration by Carly Robins.
Stella Lane is a genius. She’s a brilliant econometrist who is completely dedicated to her job and comes from a very well-off family; at thirty, she’s settled and secure, although she wishes her mother would stop trying to set her up on blind dates and stop dropping anvil-sized hints about grandchildren. Stella has generally found dating to be a demoralising and disappointing experience; her autism means she doesn’t function well in social situations and her dislike of being touched only makes the prospect of intimacy that much more daunting. She doesn’t know how to make small-talk, doesn’t really know how to dissemble or tell the little white lies that grease the wheels of social interaction, and her three sexual experiences have been pretty disastrous. None of the men she’s been with have really taken the trouble to find out what she likes or wants, and she’s more or less decided that sex just isn’t for her, when a colleague – a guy her mum suggests Stella should date – makes an offhand comment suggesting that perhaps if Stella could was able to enjoy sex more, it might make the men she dates more inclined to like her and would pave the way for a proper relationship. Stella is self-conscious about her performance in bed, knowing for sure that the men she’s been with have been disappointed, and decides to take his advice. But how does one practice sex? Normal guys are turned on by personality, humour and the prospect of hot sex – none of which she can offer. But … professionals are incentivised by money – which she has loads of – so she decides to hire an escort to give her “sex lessons”.
When Michael Phan arrives at the appointed place and time to meet his latest client, he’s not expecting her to be young, attractive and not at all the sort of woman who would need to pay for sex. They talk over dinner, and Michael quickly learns that Stella has been poorly treated by the men she’s been with – and determines that, if nothing else, he’s going to give this lovely, sweet and rather unusual young woman the night of her life. He realises – from her body language and actions as well as from the things she says – that the problems she insists she has with intimacy and sex run deeper than simple shyness or insecurity, and he takes extra care to pay attention to her non-verbal cues. He’s sensitive to her needs, which comes as a complete surprise to Stella – and the care he’s taking with her reinforces Stella’s decision that he’s the one she wants to guide her through the minefield of sex and sexual etiquette. She asks him if he will continue to see her on a weekly basis, but he refuses – kindly – explaining that he doesn’t “do repeats” after experiencing problems with a client who became obsessed with him and stalked him. Stella is disappointed, but is nonetheless determined to pursue her sexual education and asks Michael if he can recommend someone else… which is when he changes his mind. Having recognised that Stella’s needs are somewhat different to most clients, he can’t bear the thought of her ending up with someone who won’t understand her needs or worse, someone who will be as selfish with her as the other men she’s slept with. So he breaks his rule and agrees to three more sessions.
That’s the set up for this charming and romantic gender-swapped take on Pretty Woman. Michael has worked as an escort on Friday nights for the past three years, and it’s clear from the off that it’s a choice he had – rather than wanted – to make. He’s a talented designer who was set to take up his dream job when his mother asked him to return home; his father had abandoned her after she was diagnosed with cancer and she needed Michael’s help with her business. Realising there’s no money, Michael decided to use his only assets – his handsome face and fit body – to make enough money to pay for her treatment, and allows his family to believe the bills are covered by her (non-existent) medical insurance.
Both Michael and Stella are wonderfully drawn, rounded characters with flaws and insecurities that make them that much more real. Ms. Hoang clearly knows her stuff when it comes to her descriptions of the way that Stella’s condition affects her, and Stella’s reluctance to admit to Michael that she’s autistic because she wants him to see her as a person rather than as a label, is supremely understandable. Michael is beautiful and confident and yet is plagued by doubts that he might turn out to be a mean bastard like his dad, so the fact that Stella treats him with consideration and obviously values him as a person and not just someone to use for sex both charms and confuses him. But the business aspect of their relationship is bound to cause problems, especially when the lines begin to blur, as Stella, who is falling for Michael, also knows that she’s paying him to be attentive to her. And of course, the matter of his past escorting isn’t something that can be ignored either, and that does rear its ugly head and threaten to drive a wedge between them.
I recently listened to Carly Robins narrating Kate Clayborn’s Beginner’s Luck and enjoyed her performance, so I was fairly sure I was in a safe pair of hands here, and I wasn’t wrong. Ms. Robins’ narration is very assured and technically adept; she adopts a variety of different vocal personas with skill and consistency and differentiates very effectively between all the characters. She – I think wisely – opts not to give broad accents to Michael’s mother and grandmother, and instead conveys their different ethnicity through tone and timbre. Her male voices are generally good – not pitched down in her boots, but with enough of a drop from her normal pitch to make Michael sound attractively sexy and masculine. Her portrayal of Stella is excellent; Ms. Robins does a great job of intimating at the vulnerability Stella tries so hard to hide and delivers a strong performance all round.
Given the storyline, it’s no surprise that there are perhaps more sex scenes in this book than in many other contemporary romances, but I never felt as though they had been shoe-horned in for the sake of it; they are integral to the story and to the development of the central romance.
The Kiss Quotient is an entertaining, feel-good story that nonetheless addresses some serious issues. The humour and warmth that permeate its pages are palpable, as is the chemistry between Stella and Michael, whose gradual falling in love is superbly written. Add in a very strong performance from Carly Robins, and this is an audiobook I am happy to recommend to others.
Caz
Buy The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang on Amazon
