The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.

               The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.


"Someone told me you can tell if a person's monogamous by the size of his testicles. Gene sent me to a genetics expert to settle the bet."

The Rosie Project is just one of professor Don Tillman's ideas to indulge his passion of science. The Wife Project is the first, followed in hot pursuit by the Father Project, culminating in the Don Tillman Project and of course the Rosie Project.

Take a 39 year old geneticist called Don whose brain is wired or configured differently from the majority of people, a brilliant scientist but rather socially challenged and you'll be right in assuming he has Asperger's. Ironically he lectures on Asperger's but when asked who shows symptoms of obsessive behaviour he doesn't recognise his own behaviour as being autistic. He quotes Lazlo Hevesi in the Physics Department. He is "literal-minded to the point of lunacy." Don doesn't display any emotion, everything is logical and scientific. He cannot empathise but he can memorise intricate details.

His lack of social skills leaves him isolated and he has two friends but he plans on rectifying this and the Wife Project dominates the early part of this quirky love story with a difference. He compiles a 16 page scientifically valid survey to find his perfect match confident it will work. The goal posts are high and even when he modifies the questionnaire things are looking grim.

Out of the blue a Ph.D. psychology student, Rosie Jarman turns up, a charming but complicated woman, sent by Gene her psychology lecturer to find out about monogamy and testicles. Don misconstrues her arrival thinking she is a candidate for his Wife Project. He soon decides on her unsuitability but warms to her and discovers that she needs to trace her biological father. Rosie's mother died when she was 10 in a car accident. Phil, her mother's partner saved Rosie and has brought her up as his daughter.

Don abandons his Wife project in favour of finding out Rosie's real father. Tracing all likely candidates proves to be an entertaining exercise, taking swabs surreptitiously, even stealing toothbrushes for DNA sampling and travelling together to the States enables this oddball of a couple to get closer but can they ever experience a normal  relationship? Doubtful. But a worthwhile read.

This is the debut novel from Simsion. Watch this space because the sequel The Rosie Effect is due out soon. 25th of September 2014.
Publisher: Penguin. ISBN: 978-1-403-91279-2

REVIEW it.

Copyright 2014. Permission must be obtained from the author before any of this article review is reproduced.


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