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. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out ..

Image
I have been told on more than one occasion that I'm sarcastic. Often that I'm too sarcastic (as though there could be such a thing) and I have retort up my sleeve for such occasions which is if you think I'm sarcastic you should meet my mother. No, really you should because my sarcasm is but a pale imitation of hers. Every so often though I come out without something that makes my friends or other family members pause because sometimes when I open my mouth, my mother comes out.  It's funny how people always take the words you are turning into your mother as such an insult because the reality of the matter is it's a both a good and bad thing. Obviously there are certain qualities I am perfectly happy to emulate and others not so much and on the whole I am not entirely sure how much control I have over it. It's not quite a pick and mix counter here. I think there are some habits you are not even aware you have picked up until someone else kindly points it out....
Read more

How long does it take to learn to drive?

Image
I remember my nieces a year or so back asking me in an incredulous tone how long it takes to learn to drive because for as long as they could remember I had L plates on my car. The answer in my case is four years. Admittedly I probably could have gotten my full licence sooner if I hadn't been so hesitant to do my test in the three years that have passed since my last attempt. I get very anxious during tests or Interviews and so do not perform particularly well at either. I will put that in my list of things I need to work on in the new year. In time since I have learned to drive I feel I have accomplished a lot and yet I will go out of my way to avoid having to parallel park because I feel like its always going to be my Achilles heel. At least I have come a long way from the days when I used to feel anxious about getting into my car and was likely to bunny hop across roundabouts in third gear. The problem with learning to drive is that the older you do the harder it is and...
Read more

Burnout: the sequel

Image
  I am burnt out. Hardly the most shocking declaration given I have been saying it out loud for a while now but here we are. This isn't my first run in with burn out nor will it likely be my last. Not only am I working in a stressful job, a social care worker in residential care, which is no stranger to burn out but also I am autistic so its like I know a secret short cut to getting there. I think as bragging goes this is up there with declaring how many times I have managed to catch covid. Which is 4 at my current count and they say there are no benefits to working in Health care. If you are lucky enough to not have experienced burnout then I can tell you its not an experience I would recommend to a friend. If you have friends working in social care then you probably wont need to.  Some of the things I have been experiencing are random bouts of crying. Given high sensitivity is part of my autism profile, I am no stranger to crying and the first time I experienced burnout it t...
Read more