The Rosie Project: A Novel Author: Graeme Simsion | Language: English | ISBN:
1476729085 | Format: PDF
The Rosie Project: A Novel Description
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, October 2013: Full of heart and humor, Simsion’s debut novel about a fussy, socially-challenged man’s search for the perfect wife is smart, breezy, quirky, and fun. Sure, it’s the precise equivalent of a well-crafted romantic comedy. (In fact, the book was clearly written with the big-screen in mind, and the film rights have already been sold). But you’d have to be a pretty cynical reader not to fall for Don Tillman, a handsome genetics professor who has crafted a pathologically micromanaged life for himself but can’t seem to score a second date. After launching his Wife Project, which includes a hilarious questionnaire intended to weed out imperfect candidates--smokers, makeup wearers, vegans (“incredibly annoying”)--Don meets Rosie, a stunning, maddeningly disorganized bartender/student who’s looking for her biological father. The reader knows just where the story is headed: Rosie’s so wrong for Don, she’s perfect. That’s not giving anything away. Half the fun of the book is watching pent-up, Asperger’s-afflicted Don break free, thanks to Rosie, from his precisely controlled, annoyingly sensible, and largely humorless lifestyle. By the final third, you’re cheering for Don to shatter all his rules. And you’re casting the film. --Neal Thompson
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Genetics professor Don Tillman’s ordered, predictable life is thrown into chaos when love enters the equation in this immensely enjoyable novel. Never good with social cues, Don explains his difficulty empathizing with others, which he forthrightly says is a defining symptom of the autism spectrum, as a result of his brain simply being wired differently. Diagnosis is not the issue here, as the reader is rooting for Don as he searches for ways to fit in. With his fortieth birthday approaching, he designs a questionnaire to find a compatible female life partner using his overriding devotion to logic. But he finds his quest competing with the request of a woman to discover the identity of her biological father. The protagonist is passingly similar to that of Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), but Simsion’s first novel is not as dark, focusing instead on the humor and significance of what makes us human. Don is used to causing amusement or consternation in others, but as his self-awareness and understanding grow, so do his efforts to behave more appropriately. Determined and unintentionally sweet, Don embarks on an optimistic and redemptive journey. Funny, touching, and hard to put down, The Rosie Project is certain to entertain even as readers delve into deep themes. For a book about a logic-based quest for love, it has a lot of heart. --Bridget Thoreson
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- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 1, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1476729085
- ISBN-13: 978-1476729084
- Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
The Rosie Project is the first novel by Australian author and playwright, Graeme Simsion. Professor Don Tillman is unmarried, and a consideration of the statistics leads him to conclude he needs a wife. While Don's physical attributes and career should make him an attractive prospective husband, his social ineptitude has resulted in a track record of unsatisfactory dating experiences, the Apricot Ice Cream Disaster and the Pig Trotter Disaster being just two examples. He therefore decides to vet applicants for his Wife Project with a 16-page (double-sided) questionnaire, in the interests of efficiency. When Rosie Jarman sweeps into his life, Don quickly concludes that this smoking, swearing barmaid with punctuality problems is entirely unsuitable, yet, against all his rational instincts, he decides to offer his expertise in genetics in the search for her father. Soon his regimented, logical life is turned upside down: Don learns the danger inherent in judging a person by their occupation, and that not everything in life follows a formula.
Simsion has created a very funny novel which also has the reader thinking about emotion and logic, love and friendship, conventionality and non-conformists, and what it takes to modify one's behaviour. This is a fast-paced love story with an interesting twist. Simsion's characters have plenty of depth and the fact that none of them is perfect adds to their appeal. While Don may be wired differently (mentally assessing the age and BMI of everyone he meets, reacting to stress with a spreadsheet or a schedule), he has integrity, focus, enthusiasm and determination, and it is impossible not to feel empathy with him even while laughing at his missteps. And impossible not to shed a tear when he suspects he is incapable of love and therefore unacceptable.
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