The Rosie Project

It's a charming love story, pure confection.

Don Tillman is a genetics professor with Asperger's. His life is ordered and finely tuned to his sensibilities. He's the narrator of our tale here, and while I can object to this being an easy excuse to adopt a flat, matter of fact tone, Tillman is nonetheless endearing. Part Data, part Sheldon Cooper.

Don decides to embark in earnest on acquiring a life partner and thus devises “The Wife Project”, a thick questionnaire to weed out incompatibilities in potential mates when in walks Rosie Jarman, the world's most incompatible woman.

I can't even write a review of the story that doesn't have me hating it, or at least discarding it with a yawning dismissal. You know what's going to happen. You know the tropes that will be visited. How clearly the arc will unfold with it's minor crises and major revelations. So it's no mean feat that Graeme Simsion managed to keep me turning the pages and not hating myself after finishing the book. It's a fun, light read that I only feel a little guilty recommending. If you can't bring yourself to enjoy this bit of fluff you can always wait for the inevitable movie this is so ripe to be made into.