Loved this so much!! Read this as a book club read and was not expecting it to be so steamy but it was also very sweet and I fell in love with Stella and Michael's bond. 

Wow. So to keep this short since I am tired and hungry going to say that everything worked for me except I thought that someone should have explained Khai's autism to Esme a lot better than they did. I also thought the harebrained scheme his brother cooked up was ridiculous and was honestly one of the things that took me right out of the book. I did think that Hoang still does a great job with love scenes and sexual tension. I loved our quick glimpses into Michael and Stella but really wanted more. I have to say that I thought it was odd to have what we see as Michael opting out of things to Stella not liking crowds, and thought how weird it was that he couldn't just to to events without her. Okay, moving on. The ending was okay, just not great to me with the four years later leap which didn't show much of anything had changed except with two secondary characters that I really didn't care much about.

"The Bride Test' follows Khai Diep. We heard about him and I think may have gotten a scene with him (I can't remember) in the last book. Khai was know is autistic but seems to have a more severe form. This has Khai believing he has no feelings and can't love people which one would think would have been discussed before now, but here we are. Khai's mother is worried he will never marry and flies back to Vietnam to find a bride for him. She ends up meeting Esme Tran in Ho Chi Minh City in a bathroom of all places. Esme had her life derailed by an unexpected pregnancy. Now she works as a maid and has dreams of finding the American father that abandoned her pregnant mother more than two decades earlier. Khai's mother sees something in Esme and offers to fly her to America to meet her son and convince him to marry her.

This book follows Esme and Khai starting to fall for each other though Khai is reluctant to be with anyone and likes his routines. I actually ended up liking Khai a lot in this story. There's a hilarious scene discussing sex with him, his brother Quan, and Michael. I still am a bit confused about what he does for a job though. You find out that losing his best friend when he was younger along with his father has really affected Khai a lot and it was something that no one really talked with him before.

Esme is determined to not just stay with Khai unless he loves her and I have to say that I liked the fact she was focused on going to school and paving a way for her mother and daughter. The chemistry between Khai and Esme was wonderful to see and as I said the love scenes though not as numerous as the last book were great.

The writing was very good and the flow worked up until the end with what I call the this must be a Hallmark Movie twist/ending. It just didn't work for me and I found myself annoyed by it. 

The book ends on a weird note too and I literally flipped back to make sure I had not read four years later. I had a lot of questions about immigration and all of that but just decided to pretend that in this world Donald Trump isn't a thing. 

This book was an interesting Romance paradox to me. It somehow managed to be really freaking cute and heartwarming while also being sort of taboo and dirty. The characters were very likeable, I definitely found myself rooting for both of them. It was also a quick read that grabbed you from the very beginning and I honestly couldn't put it down until I finished. I read this all in one sitting. One of my favorite things was I felt like I found it very insightful as to how a person with asperger's syndrome thinks and operates. I love it when you're reading fiction and feel like you're also learning some things.

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I thought that this was really good. I have had a copy of this book for some time but never picked it up despite the fact that other readers have been raving about it. I wanted to read the book but I just couldn't seem to work it into my reading schedule so when the audiobook went on sale recently, I jumped on it. Sometimes, it is just easier to work an audiobook into my reading schedule and I have to say that the narration added to my enjoyment of this wonderful little story.

I wrongly assumed that this would be a sweet and rather tame romance largely because of the cover. Boy, was I ever wrong! The story may have had its sweet moments but this is not a tame romance. This was pretty steamy and there were a lot more sex scenes than I would have guessed. I don't mind romances with a lot of heat and rather enjoy them in most cases so the fact that my assumption was wrong didn't make a difference to me but I thought I would mention the fact to other readers.

Stella has Asperger's and sometimes looks at the world a little different than others. She excels at her profession as an econometrician but knows that she has a few things to learn when it comes to sex. She decides that the best course of action is to hire a professional to teach her what she needs to know which is where Michael enters the picture. Michael is not proud of his job as an escort but he is resigned to doing what his family needs him to do. He has a one date rule for his clients until he meets Stella and agrees to help her with her lessons.

I really liked getting the opportunity to be in Stella's head. I loved the way she described everything and her internal monologue provided a lot of insight to the reader. She tries to break everything down into logical steps but is really unsure about a lot of things. Michael's character was just as interesting. He is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of his family. He really was a great guy and I loved how he was with Stella. He thought highly of her and thought others should as well. He seemed to know just what she needed.

I had a great time watching these two fall for each other. They had such great chemistry with each other but they also seemed to be able to see everything good about each other. They didn't hold anything against each other. Michael didn't care about Stella's labels and Stella didn't care about Michael's history. They instead saw what kind of person the other was.

Carly Robins did a fantastic job with the narration of this audiobook. I think that her performance really helped to bring the story to life for me. I think that she captured the personalities of both Stella and Michael and brought a lot of emotion into the reading. She had a very pleasant reading voice that was easy to listen to for hours at a time.

I would recommend this book to fans of contemporary romance. This was a great romance with wonderful characters that made me laugh and touched my heart. I look forward to reading whatever Helen Hoang comes up with next!

I received a review copy of this book from Berkley Publishing Group via Bookish First and purchased a copy of the audiobook.

Initial Thoughts
This was good. I liked Stella and Michael a lot and thought that they were both very interesting characters. I liked how well these two seemed to fit with each other and thought that the chemistry was intense. The narrator did a great job with the story and added to my overall enjoyment.