Book Review | The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Don Tillman is not your average guy. He’s got his life scheduled and organized for optimal efficiency and zero time waste. He’s a brilliant professor of genetics, but socially he’s inept, and he’s smart enough to know it. He had written off finding a life partner, but from the encouragement of a few close friends, he’s back to finding himself the perfect wife. He’s created a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the incompatible and undesirables.

When Tillman meets Rosie, he quickly assesses that she does not fit the bill for ‘The Wife Project.’ But Don becomes intrigued with Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father, which leads him to start ‘The Father Project.’

The Father Project involves secretly collecting and analyzing the DNA of over 100 men. Rosie and The Father Project create mayhem to Tillman’s precise schedule, but through the resulting spontaneity to his life, he’s able to learn some important things about himself that he’d not yet been able to figure out.

Oh, friends! The Rosie Project was a riot. It took me a couple of chapters to get into it, but then I was rolling on the floor laughing. If you need a pick-me-up, go read this book. I loved the zany irony that Simsion creates. Don is a lovable character and you’re sure to be cheering for Rosie throughout the book.

I listened to the audio version of this book. It was fantastic. The reader sounds like Benedict Cumberbatch and I kept getting flashes of him as Sherlock, which was actually a perfect fit for Don Tillman, because Sherlock has aspects of Asperger’s in his personality, just like Don.

Simsion has a sequel to this book releasing at the end of this month called, The Rosie Effect. I can’t wait and, yet, I’m also a little nervous to get my hands on it. The Rosie Project was so fabulous, I just don’t want it ruined by a bad or even an average follow-up.

Overall Rating:

Parent’s guide:

Sex: Sex is discussed, but directly never happens. Some kissing.
Language: Some swearing including the F-word.
Violence: None
Drug Use: Lots of drinking.

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Title: The Rosie Project
Series: Don Tillman #1
Author: Graeme Simsion
Genre: Nonfiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Format: Audiobook
Pages: 304

MEET DON TILLMAN, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.

Rosie Jarman is all these things. She also is strangely beguiling, fiery, and intelligent. And while Don quickly disqualifies her as a candidate for the Wife Project, as a DNA expert Don is particularly suited to help Rosie on her own quest: identifying her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on the Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you.

Arrestingly endearing and entirely unconventional, Graeme Simsion’s distinctive debut will resonate with anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of great challenges. The Rosie Project is a rare find: a book that restores our optimism in the power of human connection.