THE ROSIE PROJECT
BY GRAEME SIMSION
SUMMERY COURTESY OF GOODREAD

“I am thirty-nine years old; single, intelligent, fit, in excellent health and I have a relatively high status and above-average income as an associate professor. Logically, I should be attractive to a wide range of women. In the animal kingdom, I would succeed in reproducing.

However, there is something about me that women find unappealing. I have never found it easy to make friends, and it seems that the deficiencies that caused this problem have also affected my attempts at romantic relationships. The Apricot Ice-cream Disaster is a good example.”

These are the words of Don Tillman, an odd, charming, highly successful Professor of Genetics, whose long history of ‘not fitting in’ has convinced him that he is not wired for romance. But at weekly dinners with his elderly neighbor and valued new friend, Daphne (Don can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand), she convinces him to re-evaluate his prospects.

And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he embarks upon The Wife Project, designing a questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner: a punctual, non-drinking, non-smoking female who will fit in with his regimented lifestyle.

When Rosie appears on the scene, it is clear that she fits none of his selection criteria: a spontaneous, outspoken barmaid who smokes and curses, and simply adjusts the time on Don’s clock when he complains that they have fallen off his carefully planned schedule. Yet an unlikely partnership blooms when Don agrees to help Rosie search for her biological father. As Rosie pushes Don out of his comfort zone again and again, he finds to his surprise that he may be having fun. But can a real relationship take root if Don isn’t wired to feel emotion like everyone else?

Graeme Simsion’s moving and comic novel, sustained by a remarkable narrative voice, takes the reader on an immensely satisfying journey as Don seeks to see more within himself than he ever thought was possible.


Review

Graeme Simsion has produced a book unlike anything I've ever read before, its quirky, funny, witty and intelligent. The characters were well developed and the writing was compelling and had me super glued to my e reader from the first paragraph.

This book had me laughing out loud and then wanting to weep as I turned the page as once again things didn't turn out well for Don. My heart went out to this somewhat odd college professor right from the very start as he made his way through life, just slightly out of step from the rest of the world around him.

Don Tillman has Asperger’s. He knows he’s ‘wired differently’ (he reminded me of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory),but 'he also knows that he deserves somebody special in his life. After much thought Don creates the Wife Project; a 16-page questionnaire.

Don meets Rosie who immediately fails on two Wife Project counts.(she drinks and smokes). Although Don and Rosie have nothing in common they are drawn together in the hunt to find Rosie's biological father.

Rosie is a complete contrast to Don,shes modern, unreliable and full of emotion. Rosie's interactions with Don are hysterical,she draws him out of his world and helps him see the world differently which ultimately leads him to finding love and acceptance hes always dreamed of.
This heartwarming, witty book is sure to bring a smile to readers.

5 plus stars