My book of the week - The Rosie project

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

 The Rosie project is one of those books that I have picked up numerous times and debated reading but for some reason or another it has never made it home to my bookshelf. On some level I felt that I might enjoy it but the cover wasn't completely appealing to me and I think that put me off a little. Then two people recommended it to me in the one week and I decided I would have to find out for myself what it was like, I was not disappointed. 

 The plot centres around Don Tillman, a rigid and socially awkward middle aged geneticist  who is keen to meet a woman but has much difficulty getting them to stay beyond the first date. He devises the wife project to fix this, essentially asking potential dates to fill out a questionnaire so that he can rule out the unsuitable ones from the get go. Then he meets Rosie who is the complete opposite of everything he is looking for and she throws his life into disorder. 

 This could have been just another love story but Graeme Simsion has an extraordinary ability to write the kind of characters who reel you in. I cannot enjoy a book properly if I don't like a single character in it, I tend to find it niggles at me throughout and the overall impression I come away with is a negative one even if the writing itself is flawless. This was not an issue I had with the Rosie Project. I instantly found I had a soft spot for Don who clearly has undiagnosed Aspergers and he is completely unaware of this. He is completely inept socially and I actually found that to be somewhat endearing. His frankness does not sit well with many and I had a good chuckle at his many faux pas throughout the book. 

It was funny and thoughtful and incredibly clever in the writing and it actually took me a while to pick up another book afterwards because I felt like I was still engrossed in the story long after I finished reading.

 Rosie was a character I  both liked and didn't like at the same time .I felt like she was a bit all over the place emotionally and that irked me but I enjoyed reading about how she turned Don's whole world on its head.

 The other central characters in this story were friends of Don's, Gene and his wife Claudia. Gene I found slightly pathetic, now I don't know if that is what Graeme wanted his readers to take from the story or was it just my own feelings about Gene's behaviour. He guided Don through most of his life but on some level it was obvious that Gene was the worst person to be asking because he clearly did not have his own life together. His wife Claudia I felt sorry for, she was a great confidante for Don but she seemed to be unhappy in her marriage and utterly taken for granted. They did however create a great back drop for the story of Don and Rosie to take place.

 My only regret is that I waited so long to read it, If only I had known how much I was missing out. It was surprisingly easy read for literary fiction which sometimes feels like it needs to be ploughed through as you pat yourself on the back for being dedicated enough to read it but this I got through in a little over a day and finished even more taken with Don than I was at the start even I feel he and I wouldn't get on in real life. 

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