#2 The Rosie Project by Graem Simsion

#2 The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

 My Dear Reader,

The Rosie Project was captivating from the get-go.  It follows Don, a man on his quest to meet the perfect woman which he is confident he will find through a personally designed questionnaire to which he has pre-determined the correct responses. Case in point, when Claudia, the wife of his good friend Gene reviews his questionnaire she says, ‘For an appointment, I’m guessing (a) a little early?’ To which Don responds that that is patently incorrect and that the correct answer is on time because habitual earliness is cumulatively a waste of time. He is patently not a romantic man at heart!

Through his “Wife Project” we get to know him and all his quirkiness. Don is hyper efficient as demonstrated in his daily schedule which is designed to maximize his time through multi-tasking (only you’ve never seen multi-tasking quite like Don’s). He doesn’t pick up on social cues and is pragmatic to the nth degree (he sees sharing a cab with a woman as a sensible use of fossil fuel). In many ways, Don reminds me of Sheldon from the sit-com “The Big Bang Theory”. Don, like Sheldon is extremely intelligent, often clinical or scientific in his thought process making conversation with average humans virtually impossible because he misses the nuances inherent in most social situations. This failing only compounds his misunderstanding of women which leads him to revise his questionnaire on the basis that women don’t fit into a one-size-fits-all box. Who knew!  

Enter Rosie, an “unconventional but extremely attractive” woman who flunks his questionnaire within the first few questions yet manages to pull Don into her life by convincing him to work on her Father project. As they work together to discovery who Rosie’s father is, Don becomes enlightened in the ways of women and the world and is forced to adjust his very large brain and all that is in it.

It finally dawns on Don that the questionnaire he designed is not structured to find a woman he could accept but is really designed to find a woman who could accept him and after all, isn’t that what were all searching for? Someone who will love us, quirks and all? This was a very lighted-hearted book, funny and a quick read and I highly recommend it. Until next time, have you read a book today?

Julie