The Rosie Project Review

Author: Graeme Simsion

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 297

Rating: ★★★★







Synopsis: The Rosie Project follows Don Tillman, a middle-aged, socially awkward, brilliant college genetics professor on a quest to see if he can find true love. We follow the story through his point of view as he goes through the trials of finding love through his invention, The Wife Project. While conducting this experiment, he meets Rosie Jarman who is the exact opposite of all the criteria that Don has set out to find in the Wife Project. However, Rosie is on her own mission, to find out who her real father is and she is in need of a geneticist. As the two form an unlikely relationship we get to follow Don as he realizes that love isn't always what it seems and it is not always what looks good on paper.

Positives:
I really enjoyed this book. I loved Don from the very beginning. I thought that the author did a really great job of showing us who Don truly was through his thought processes and his personality. The author was able to make a distinct voice for Don and thus made a very unique, quirky, loveable character. The character of Don is a big part of what made this such a special and enjoyable book to me. I did also really like the character of Rosie. I felt like she brought a fun vibrancy to the plot, and I enjoyed getting to see how much she contrasted with Don, yet he would find himself so confused because he somehow really enjoyed her presence??  I also loved the premise of the book. I thought it was a unique plot to a romance story instead of being just the same old plot line that has been used and slightly tweaked over and over again. Overall it was a fun, easy book to read, and I loved it for a light, summer read.

Negatives:
I did however have an issue with the random, almost nonchalant mention of autism in the book. The entire book you know that Don is socially awkward and that he keeps to himself, but I never thought that he was autistic. I attributed his quirkiness to just that, he is a super crazy smart professor who is socially challenged and a little awkward. But then, towards the end of the book, there is a random mention of how the whole time Don has been autistic and was just never diagnosed as a child. Maybe I just missed some little clues that should have pointed me to this, or maybe I am just a little touchy about the subject because I volunteer with/aspire to one day work with special needs children. Either way, I thought that if the author was going to make Don autistic it should have been pronounced a little bit more instead of just thrown in there. In my opinion, it didn't even feel like it needed to be something mentioned in the story and it felt very thrown in there which is where my problem with it lies.

If any of you have read this book, what did you think about it? Did you get any indications of the autism before it was mentioned at the end of the book? I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments below!