Graeme Simsion

The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion is a smart, funny, and emotionally engaging contemporary romance about love, regret, and second chances. Adam Sharp is a wonderfully flawed protagonist, prone to romantic nostalgia and the story of his one great lost love is both relatable and absorbing. Simsion’s conversational first-person style, sharp humor, and inventive plot bring the characters vividly to life. I loved the musical elements woven throughout, especially Adam’s piano playing show more and the song lyrics.
Once I started reading, it was nearly impossible to put down. Fans of Woody Allen films will especially enjoy this. show less

How about this for a first sentence? "I may have found a solution to the Wife Problem." In this screwball comedy, the narrator is a professor of genetics named Don Tillman, who teaches at a Melbourne university. He is tall and bears some resemblance to Gregory Peck, but is such an odd duck that he has trouble connecting with women and, really, anyone. His two friends, fellow prof Gene and his wife Claudia, understand his idiosyncrasies and appreciate his warm heart.

Don creates a questionaire show more for potential mates to fill out, that will eliminate unfavorable candidates like those fixated on one flavor of ice cream. (This derived from "the Ice Cream Incident", in which an ice cream store's failure to have his date's ice cream choice leads to a dating disaster). Lack of punctuality, vegetarianism, and other eliminating criteria are included. Then, via a misunderstanding, he meets the unpunctual, vegetarian Rosie. Rosie has many other eliminating qualities, but Don finds himself drawn to help her find her biological father, even though it means that for the first time he will be breaking some of his rules. Their adventures together collecting DNA from potential candidates are very amusing, and their pushme-pullyou relationship is charming. Don knows from the beginning she is not a suitable candidate and yet . . . and Rosie finds his crazy ways entertaining, but his difficulties with emotions too frustrating, and yet . . .

Many thanks to Mark for recommending this one. Simsion nails the tone perfectly throughout. A set piece at a party in which Don helps Rosie by acting as waiter and bartender, taking advantage of his phenomenal memory, is classic. This is a fun romp that has the bonus of helping us look at ourselves and our relationships from a different, gently odd, perspective. show less

The Rosie Project is a screwball romantic comedy with a neurodiverse character (no formal diagnosis). There is effort to distribute the humor across characters: the neurodiverse protagonist is the source of most of the humorous irony as he makes his way through a lot of awkward interpersonal interactions, but the author gently pokes fun at Rosie and Gene as well (maybe not so gently at Gene, the stereotypical philandering psychology professor).

Romcoms often have some very large relationship show more red flags built into the plot (e.g. infidelity, attachment disorder) so that there is some dramatic tension, but this one is built around Don's misunderstanding of emotional content (and Rosie's, as well). You have a sense pretty early on that this is a workable relationship because they are both putting in a lot of effort. While it's one kind of fun to read romantic comedies where the leads are honestly terrible for each other, this is a much warmer, love-affirming fun.

I can see why the book was optioned as a movie, but it's going to be hard to translate to the screen: how do you portray everything that's going on in Don's head? show less

Last year, Graeme Simsion blew me away with The Rosie Project. Despite my qualms at the beginning, Don Tillman soon became a character who I absolutely adored. His punctuality, honesty, and over the top preparation for everything in life made him an intriguing person. I wasn't expecting to love Don. I wasn't even really expecting to like him, to be honest. Graeme Simsion's writing prowess changed all of that, and I was completely thrilled. So, when I saw The Rosie Effect pop up as a sequel? show more Well, I knew I'd have to read it. No question about it.

Now for those of you who might be coming in to these books new, let me tell you a little about Don. He has Asperger's, and as such is a rather complex man. He schedules everything, loves to gain new knowledge, and has a bit of a hard time with empathy and social situations. That's why I was so intrigued by the premise of The Rosie Effect. We all know that the prospect of a new baby is exciting, but stressful. I could only imagine how Don, of all people, would deal with an unexpected pregnancy. In my mind, I saw lots of intense planning! I was right. Oh yes, I was right.

I think it's only fair to mention that Rosie is rather insufferable in this particular book. I had a difficult time with her the first time around. Her feminist views, and overall demeanor in fact, were only bearable because Don was so sweet on her. I couldn't let her derail my adoration of him. This time, I almost put this book down multiple times because of Rosie's character. Her selfishness, her petty views, the way she treated Don, all of it made me want to slap her and tell her that he was too good for her anyway. As before, Don really stole the show and that helped a lot with my enjoyment of this book. I'm pretty sure my opinion of Rosie borders on abject hate at his point though.

Moving on, even Rosie wasn't enough to keep me from loving this story. Watching Don's growth from the last book to this one was wonderful and hilarious. His new groups of friends, the new problems he creates for himself, all of it was classic Don. He's a character that I can't help but like. I have to say that he just keeps on surprising me. Despite everything else, I had a lot of fun watching him navigate this new chapter in his life. Bravo, Mr. Simsion. Let's hope that if these two come back for another book, Rosie gets her act together. show less