Book #58: The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
Number of pages: 420
This book is a sequel to a novel I read a few years ago and loved, The Rosie Project, which centred around Don Tillman, a professor with asperger's syndrome trying to find his perfect partner, who ended up being the eponymous Rosie.
In this book, Don and Rosie are happily married, and now living in New York, but early in the book Rosie drops a bombshell; she is pregnant. Don has a knee-jerk reaction and runs out of their apartment, not knowing how he will cope with fatherhood.
Also, Don learns that his friend Gene has been kicked out of the house by his wife for infidelity, and is coming over to America; Rosie is not pleased about the concept of Gene moving in with them.
This book takes on the same rom-com style as the original book, as hapless Don first of all gets himself fired from his part-time job as a cocktail waiter for asking a fat woman if she is pregnant, and then decides to research the concept of fatherhood by videoing parents and their children at a playpark.
Predictably, Don ends up being arrested, and agreeing to see a psychiatrist to assess his suitability as a father. But he weaves a tangled web when he decides he doesn't want Rosie to know about his arrest and asks a friend to come along to the therapy sessions and pretend that she is Rosie. I was able to predict that Don was about to start jeopardising his own marriage in many ways, and towards the end I was wondering if Don and Rosie would even stay together.
I enjoyed this book a lot, mostly because of the way Don is written (he's very similar to Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory), particularly the way he expresses his thoughts throughout the book (like with the original novel, he guesses everyones' age and body mass index). I found myself caring a lot about him and his relationship with Rosie.
Hopefully, Graeme Simsion will write a third Don Tillman novel sometime soon.
Next book: The Red House (Mark Haddon)