Review: THE BRIDE TEST

Title: The Bride Test by Helen Huong

Book Beginning quote:

Prologue. Ten years ago. San Jose, California. Khai was supposed to be crying. He knew he was supposed to be crying. Everyone else was. But his eyes were dry.

Friday56 quote: 

Like always, he padded into his living room and took his spot at the proper machine. As he did overhead presses at 125 pounds, he was aware of Esme walking into the kitchen, helping herself to the fruit smorgasbord his mom had provided, and getting herself a glass of water, which she forgot on the counter, but he stayed focused and efficiently worked through five sets of five repetitions.

Summary: 

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. (Publisher)

 

Review: The Bride Test is the first book club selection for 2024 for the SOTH Ladies, a church book club. We are all women, mostly older, with an average age over 70. I am the the club organizer and every month I select a kit from the public library which is made up of a set of 15 books and a discussion guide. The books are free to us, since I have a library card, and usually we find plenty to discuss. This time our discussion will be very different because this book is clearly outside our wheelhouse, not our normal reading choice. Let me be clear: the book contains many, many scenes with sex. Lots of sex. 

One lady, who will be coming to the club for the first time, said she wasn't sure she got the right book since this one was clearly pornographic. I'm not sure I'd go that far in my description of it, but it certainly has much more sex than any other book we've ever read as a club before. Ha! My husband listened to a portion of it with me and he said the library should label their book kits with notices. Kits like this with "For younger audiences" and the ones we usually get "For old, church lady audiences." You get my point.

We had to postpone our meeting by a week due to bad weather. We meet this coming Tuesday. Can't wait to see how this discussion turns out. 

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-Anne