The Rosie Project ~ Graeme Simsion

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As mentioned in another review I wrote, a staff of my local Chapters had a long chat with me and recommended several books to me. She declared "The Rosie Project" to be hilarious and said that she laughed out loud several times while reading it.

(The other books she recommended were "Joyland" and "The Shadow of the Wind". I was disappointed with "Joyland" as well. Read my review.)

I blame her for all this disappointment. She pumped up these books to be amazing, wonderful, moving, etc. In short, I found them to be moderately enjoyable reads, but nothing special. Perhaps she is just given to hyperbolic speech in order to sell books... Either way, I feel taken in.

This book was alright. I mean, she did say that she laughed so hard reading it, and I counted the time I snorted out loud: once. The main character Don has Aspberger's (I assume, although I don't think it ever comes straight out and says that) and lacks certain social skills.

He struggles to make and maintain connections with people. At 39 he decides that he needs to get serious about finding a wife. After suffering through several bad dating experiences, he creates a quiz for any potential candidates to take as a way of screening out the undesirables without wasting time and money on a first date.

Of course he ends up meeting a strange woman Rosie, who is completely different than his dream wife. She smokes, drinks too much, gets in fights, commits small crimes and generally causes mayhem in his life.

The story is basic. Sometimes we think we know what we want from life or the people around us, but most of the time we really don't, and the author teaches us that in a gentle and amusing way.

It's not a bad book. I would recommend it as a quick summer read. However, you're probably not going to laugh out loud reading it. In many ways I found it to be more serious than expected.

3/5 and may we all find our own Rosie.

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