The Rosie Effect – Graeme Simsion

Summary

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant. In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don’s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong, and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most.

Comments

We all loved The Rosie Project and decided to pick The Rosie Effect for our next book. Although there was much about the book that we enjoyed, most of us were pretty frustrated with the characters and the story line. We felt some of the storylines lacked credibility and didn’t flow. In the story Don asks Sonja to pretend to be Rosie to help get him out of trouble with a social worker. We felt that Don’s behaviour was uncharacteristic of a person with autism. It was hard to believe that he was capable of being deceiptful and have that level of awareness to avoid stressing Rosie. It was nice to see him develop some empathy. Some of our bookclub members did not like Rosie’s character. She was very closed-off. Rosie did not involve Don in her decisions, for example, going off the pill, going to doctor’s appointments etc. Having loved The Rosie Project we were all looking forward to the sequel. We were no longer surprised by Don’s quirky behaviours and obsessions. It was too much of the same thing.

Rating – 6/10

Read by – Cultcha Club Book Club