Graeme Simsion: The Rosie Effect

"The Baby Project"
THE ROSIE PROJECT was one of the most memorable books I read last year. It was an entertaining and amusing feel-good story that made me laugh, and sometimes cry and looked at love, personal relationships and self-discovery in a very different way. "The Rosie Effect" further explores the relationship between the compulsive personality and strictly regimented life of Professor of Genetics, Don Tillman as he settles down to married life with Rosie, his loving wife who has a totally different personality.

Don and Rosie have moved from Melbourne to New York where he is teaching genetics and researching alcoholic mice at Columbia University and Rosie is about to complete her second year at Columbia Medical School. What happens when Rosie tells Don that she is pregnant? Don faces total meltdown because in his regulated life there should not be surprises. He is not psychologically ready for one of the most important tasks in his life.

So what does he do? He starts up his Baby Project (guided by a spreadsheet for planned parenthood written on the tiles of his bathroom) and quickly tries to become an expert on all things obstetric, and researches the skills of parenthood. He even implements a new Standardised Meal System designed for pregnancy. Of course, in the process he again gets things wrong emotionally and gets involved in some hilarious incidents and errors of judgement. All of this risks alienating Rosie at one of the most important times of their lives.

As an amusing side-plot, Simsion brings back Don's best friend Gene (who Rosie dislikes) who has a lifetime project to have sex with a woman from every country in the world. This project has recently wrecked his open marriage to Claudia and brings further stress into Don and Rosie's life when he becomes their house guest during his time on a sabbatical at Columbia. Gene swears off his project but by chance Don's female research assistant turns out to be Lithuanian.

It is very hard to follow up on something that was so memorable but Simsion shows that he can keep us absorbed, fascinated and amused by the story of Don and Rosie as their strange lives together progress into parenthood. Once again this is an amusing and frequently very touching human story about two different and unique characters that will make you laugh and feel sad and glad right up to the last page. Well done Graeme Simpsion - you have another winner on your hands.

Graeme Simsion: The Rosie Project

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" Wife Project" + "Father Project" = "The Rosie Project"
Once in a while I come across a gem of a book which, despite the fact that the year has only just started, will undoubtedly be in the list of the most memorable books I will read in 2014. "The Rosie Project" is an entertaining and amusing feel-good story that made me laugh, and sometimes cry and looked at love, personal relationships and self-discovery in a very different way.

On the surface, Professor of Genetics, Don Tillman, appears to be living a successful life as a top academic. However, Don is different from other successful academics because he has Asperger's syndrome and is autistic with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). He strictly timetables and regiments his personal life with the same meal plan each week and has his time strictly organised, day in, day out. He gets angry when someone arrives early or late for a meeting because he believes that everyone should arrive exactly on time.

Don knows that he is wired differently and has difficulty empathising and relating to others who don't meet his view of world - one of the defining criteria of the autism spectrum. Because of this Don has difficulty in finding a girlfriend who meets his precise standards. Following his need for precise information he starts up his own "Wife Project" by designing a multi-choice internet questionnaire to identify someone who completely meets his specific requirements for a wife. The outcome of his attempts to relate to girls who seem to pass his test is hilarious and sometimes a bit pathetic.

Along comes Rosie, who on the face of it would fail most of Don's questionnaire, asking for his help as a geneticist to find her biological father. Her late mother told her that her father was one of her graduating class of budding medicos - and there were nearly 50 males in the class. Don and Rosie start a hilarious search to get the DNA of all surviving male students or their relatives and descendants without their knowledge - of course Don calls it the "Father Project".

I found Don to be exasperating but I was always cheering him as he blundered around trying to discover his place in the world. Rosie is completely different, a delightful caring whirlwind who has her own deep seated problems. While she doesn't meet Don's expectations, a close and almost tender relationship develops between them which neither of them expects - hence "The Rosie Project".

One of my New Year's resolutions was to read "outside the wheelhouse" of my usual choice of thrillers and historical sagas. It was very gratifying to find a different kind of book so early in the year that rewarded my choice of resolution. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a to read a different, amusing, fairly light and rewarding book.

Last year I read and thoroughly enjoyed "600 Hours of Edward" about someone who has a much more extreme case of OCD than Don. The two books are very different, but if you enjoyed "The Rosie Project" I am sure that you would enjoy reading about how Edward faced up to major changes in his rigidly regimented life.