Book Review: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Title: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Kindle
This book would be rated: PG-13 for sexual themes and language

Don is a genetics professor living in Australia who knows that now that he's in his late 30s, it's time for him to start looking for a wife. And so he starts the search with the same methodical precision that he applies to his weekly dinner menus (no variations in his meals, whatsoever). He creates a questionnaire, and before he'll go out with a woman, she has to take the questionnaire, and he has to score it, after which time there are very few women who pass his test, and very few women who are willing to date him after taking it.

At the same time, Don meets Rosie, who isn't a candidate for the wife project, and even if she were, she'd totally fail Don's test. She's unpredictable and feisty and a smoker, and she enlists Don's help to find her biological father. Rather predictably, Don and Rosie fall for each other over the course of the novel, and Don starts to see that he's okay with a little bit of uncertainty in his life.

The Rosie Project was a cute book, but last time I checked Amazon it had something like a 4.8-star rating, and while I liked it well enough, I certainly didn't think it was a five-star book. In the first place, there didn't seem to be much story beyond whether Don would realize that he and Rosie were perfect for each other. And while I'm loath to admit this, as the parent of a kid with Asperger's, my kid barely resembles Don, with his regimented behaviors and nerdiness (although the social cluelessness is there), to the point that I'm not sure if Simsion has Asperger's wrong or I do. Anyway, a fun read, but I don't think it lives up to the hype it's getting.