Plot: The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.
Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”). But Don is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you.
Rating: 8/10
Thanks to Zoë, who recommended The Rosie Project, I have yet another amazing book that I got through this year. I really enjoyed the way the book was penned, the clinical retelling of Don’s first person adventures provides great insight into his fascinating mind. He provides some laughs – everything is either a Project or an Incident, and his responses and lack of empathy made me laugh out loud in some places. I thought his Wife Project would have been so offensive to anybody on the outside if you did not know that to Don is simply made so much sense to search for such a sight. It is one of the leading thoughts that come through in the book – love is not a science and there is no scientific calculation as to what makes a life partner. Rosie was everything that Don did not want, and yet he was so astounded by her entire life source that he could not stay away. I think her exasperation with Don was perfectly understandable. Who wouldn’t want to throttle someone like Don at least half of the time? I think Gene and his wife could have been slightly more fleshed out, but they merely act in the roles of Don’s friends and not whole characters in their own right. The Rosie Project is an entertaining, sweet and hilarious read, well worth the time!!
Life of this city girl 