the bride test // helen hoang

published: 2019

pages: 296

read: 8/25-27/2019

book: 53 in 2019

SYNOPSIS

Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he's defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride. 

As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can't turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working...but only on herself. She's hopelessly smitten with a man who's convinced he can never return her affection.

With Esme's time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he's been wrong all along. And there's more than one way to love.

MY THOUGHTS

is this like a thing? 

are all books now a part of a series that can be read without reading any other in the series and they're all about love but take the destructive path just to end up in, hmmm, what do you know...LOVE!?

*breathes out* rant over. 

okay so, i read this because of course i read the first one without knowing that it was going to be part of a series. and because i cant just not care, i had to read this one. 

i was going to skip it but i said to myself "shut up, suck it up and read it." 

and guys, i mean. 

pre authors note: meh. it was like whatever. definitely okay NOT reading this book

after authors note: well, i love her note but still the same. 

see here's the thing:

i LOVE love stories. i can read them forever. 

and i know that they are usually more likely than not the same damn thing. and i'm okay with that. 

100%. 

but there is something about stories that start as a plain ol' love story that then introduces all these characters that are okay just doing their one thing in that story only  to then get a notice that a character from that one story is now going to get their own story.

AND ITS THE SAME DAMN STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...das a lot of story. 

so, this story. 

it didn't do anything for me. 

it was the same damn thing as the first one. with the same damn plot. 

the one good thing about this story was Esme's story line. 

....and even then....

here's my thing: 

as part of Esme's struggle, Hoang does right by her. she's trying her best to exist BUT its things that are out of My's control that are stopping her from being who she wants to be. the short of it, the universe is conspiring against her. 

and that's about it on the good. 

now for the bad (?) maybe not bad but more like "it doesn't make sense." 

-the entire beginning, My kept going on about how it was a bad idea and how she didn't want to leave her daughter but then she realizes that she needs to do this in order to improve all their lives. 

i know this is a story (so maybe i should just let it go?) but did they not think about how this could possibly be dangerous? (I'm imagining Hoang cut this short for our benefit...lol) she's leaving her country to who knows where and her mom is all team for it! what if it hadn't turned out this way for her (and at this point im basically turning a love story into a horror one.) 

-My came off as a very shy, humble woman. how the fuck did she just flip a switch and turn on all this sexuality. especially since she was burned before. there was no build up, it just happened. how!? she went from A to Z without even seeing the rest of the letters of the alphabet (for lack of a better paraphrase).

-My is very..., not sheltered but it doesn't seem like outside of work she does much. so when she gets to Khai's and she takes off on the bike.....how the fuck did she know to use the motorcycle? i can drive a car. i have no idea how to drive a moped. let alone a motorcycle. 

-that bike. (sorry if its a spoiler) 

a) the accident was 10 years ago. ergo, its been sitting in the garage for 10 years

b) Khai has NEVER ridden it since

c) everyone just drives off with it...WHAT ABOUT GAS!? i googled it. its bad to drive on gas that's been sitting for 6 months. so 10 YEARS!!!!!! and it evaporates. so what is it living on? a prayer? (Khai being Khai i can imagine him just adding gas to it every so often  just to keep going. but Khai being Khai and numbers being numbers.....i can't picture him  justifying wasting money (even though money is of no object to him) that's just going to waste over and over again. (again, something else that isn't explained.) 

oh! and what are the chances of finding a person with only THEIR NAME AND SCHOOL info!? 
of the thousands there were......really!? 

i know there's more to it than this but i cant remember....but those were some major ones. 

it wasn't a bad book i just personally do not see the need to write the same book over and over no matter the character. its the same as Jasmine Guillory in my opinion. same shit different book. 

and i should note that even though i feel that for me the book was of no need (FOR ME), it still made me tear up in the end. LOL. 

so yea. 

FOR ME there was no need for this one, there's going to be another one and I'm placing my bet that a) i am going to read it and b) its probably going to be about Quan. or maybe Khai & My's wedding. or fuck it, maybe the love story between Esme's parents. 
i don't know. 
we'll see. 

anyway...

jump over for spoilers

thanks for reading!

#bookslesreads on IG

SPOILERS

Khai's mom goes to Vietnam to find him a wife. 

My is in the restroom cleaning when she finds a girl crying in a stall and another one walks in. 

eventually his mom walks into the restroom and propositions My to marry her son. 

so far she's intrigued. 

then his mom is like "date him. have his baby. trap him." and My is all hell no. 

she goes home thinks about what could have been and whatever. 

she gets a call. 

its K's mom and shes all wtf! and mom was all "i was jk'ing. you pass. lets do this." 

so My tells her mom, her mom is all fuck yea do it and be a dirty little slut. not in those words but she basically does. 

ma tells khai he has to pick up Esme (esme is her i guess american name) and Khai is all no but then he does. 

he picks her up, plants her in her room and yea. 

a lot of seduction on her part. 

khai fights it. 

she works at his mom's job. 

she ends up going to night school....

she ends up breaking Khai and they finally sleep in the same bed and that eventually leads to them having sex and it leads to them falling in love. 

erm well, her falling in love. 

she tells him but he tells her that he will never love her. 

and then he proposes. 

she runs away, they cant find her (khai and his brother quan. OH!!! mind you this is all happening at Michael and Stella's wedding). she stays the night in a random motel. 

the next day she takes the hour trek back near to Khai's mom's restaurant, finds a rent by the month place, gets her own place and then goes back to work. 

for a while they are apart but they keep running into their each other they almost hook up again.

Quan finally tells K that he needs to get his shit together and realize that he loves her but Khai is very insistent that he doesn't. 

he goes thru a depressive period and Q tells him that if he doesn't hurry up and realize it, he is going to marry My to keep her here. 

the day comes, the wedding is going to happen khai still hasn't shown up and then BOOM!

He shows up! 

who? khai? no! My's father!!!!!!!!!

(when she left to the US her mother gave her a picture of her father. off one Berkley picture and the name Phil, she somehow found her father.) 

the wedding is about to happen and BOOM!

Khai finally shows up. 

he tells her she loves him in Vietnamese and they live happily ever after. 

in the prologue, its been 4 years and she is graduating from Stanford. 

and they are finally going to get married in Vegas. 

-----

things i left out: 

-when My left Vietnam, she went with intentions of finding her father. 

all she has is a picture and a name: Phil. 

she goes to Berkeley. they obvs cant give her information. she goes to another office, they'll see what they can do. she gets a list or something. theres like 5000000 of them. Khai takes the list they narrow it down to like i duno, 12. 

she calls them, none are it. and of course the one that Khai calls is the one that its. 

and it turns out that it was the Phil that another Phil knows. except now its, Gleaves. 

- no one knew My had a kid and it didn't bother anyone once they all knew. 

-khai's cousin Andy dies in an a motorcycle accident. Khai is anti loving anyone because in his mind, people he loves, leave. 

he loved his father; their parents split. 

he loved Andy; andy passed away. 

he had asked Andy to go over. Andy was killed on the way to his house.

so in his head, he's "bad luck"

and at this its basically November so who knows what else....
so yea.