The Bride Test: Best Romance Books

August 1, 2024 8:12 AM EDT

Khai Diep, a wealthy Vietnamese American accountant, worries that being on the autism spectrum makes him incapable of feeling true affection. To help dissuade him of this notion, his matchmaker mom recruits Esme Tran, a mixed-race Vietnamese janitor looking for a better life, to stay with Khai for the summer with the intention that they’ll end up married. The latter is an important detail to which her son is not exactly privy. Esme, a willing participant in this arranged marriage plot, is instantly smitten, but she realizes that her usual tricks of seduction don’t work on Khai, so she’s forced to get to know him on a deeper level. The Bride Test, Helen Hoang’s sweet 2019 follow-up to her first novel The Kiss Quotient, which also features an autistic character, is one of a growing number of romances with neurodivergent leads that have spearheaded important conversations about neurodiversity in the romance genre. Like her debut, this book is rooted in Hoang’s personal experiences, both as someone with autism spectrum disorder and as the daughter of a Vietnamese immigrant who fled to the United States in hopes of building a better future for herself and her family. With grace and humor, Hoang tells a tender and hopeful story about Khai and Esme’s slow burn romance.

Buy Now: The Bride Test on Bookshop | Amazon

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