Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project
By Graeme Simsion
Simon & Schuster, 2013. 304 pgs. Fiction

Don Tillman is a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics who has decided it's time he found a wife.  So he develops a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the possible mates with "undesirable" qualities (smokers, drinkers, people who don't arrive on-time to everything, etc), and dubs it the Wife Project.  Rosie Jarman is, according to the survey, completely incompatible.  Don quickly disqualifies her as a possible wife candidate, but decides to help Rosie with her own project of finding her biological father.  An unlikely friendship develops between the two, and Don is puzzled to find that he can't stop thinking about Rosie. 

This is a charming, sweet, funny, engrossing book, and I stayed up far later than I should have to read it.  Don seems to be a very similar character to Sheldon Cooper of TV's Big Bang Theory, and seeing his life slowly change to accomodate the whirlwind of change that is Rosie is an enthralling process.  There is some language but if you can get past that this will most likely be a highly enjoyable read.

BHG

1 comment:

CKN said...

I loved this book! It was such a different take on a love story. Don was a really interesting character, and it was fun to be inside his head and see how he interpreted his friends’ and colleagues’ actions. The only thing I thought was missing was Rosie’s perspective. Simsion does a good job of showing Rosie’s character develop through her interactions with Don, but I would have loved to know what she was thinking on their first date or while they were ballroom dancing! I listened to audiobook of The Rosie Project, and I thought the reader added a lot to the story. I can’t wait to listen to the second book, The Rosie Effect!

CNC