The Rosie Project

A while back I came across a tweet that led me to Top 10 books to read in April on Stylist.co.uk (Stylist.co.uk/books/). Browsing through the list I run into a book called The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison. The author was unknown to me (not surprisingly since later it turned out this is his first novel) but the book sounded like fun. So on I march to the local bookshop expecting to find a reasonably priced paperback to carry in my beach bag. Well, not only did they not have it ("Oh, I should have guessed this, the invcompetence of these people - can't find one little book for me. I guess it's because it's in english.") but it turns out it wasn't even published ("Oops, good thing I didn't say that out loud!").

So back I crawled into my flat revising a new game plan.

Now, the fact that I wasn't able to get my hands on it made the book all the more alluring. So I looked up all kinds of sites to see where I could get it the cheapest. I tend to browse Amazon and save things for later purchase without actually ordering anything, but with this thing I started to be so determined that I actually went ahead and ordered it - along with a bunch of other stuff on the save for later list. Better get the most out of it as long as I was finally ordering something, right?

Now that I got myself proper and excited the chances were that the book was going to be a huge disappointment. Contrary to my usual book buying practices I started reading Rosie almost as soon as I got it home. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that the book was funny, intelligent and even romantic up to a point.

The main character Don or Professor Tillman and the "I" of the book reminded me of the main protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and also of Dr Sheldon Cooper of the Big Bang Theory. Like Dr Cooper, Professor Tillman is well aware of his special characteristics in comparison with his friends, co-workers and indeed people in general. Like Dr Cooper he is proud of them, but unlike Dr Cooper Professor Tillman at least sometimes realizes what makes him stand out in a crowd and what makes people react to him in a different way. The unlikely romance between Tillman an Rosie is the main plot of the book but not the thing that makes it worth reading. Tillman's struggles with his personality and attempts at understanding the rest of the world as well as his desperate, albeit short lived struggle towards normality, are what makes the book worth reading.

For once a book that I not only liked but can even recommend! Mid you - if you enjoy dark suspense filled books with explicit scenes of violence this is not a book for you. But for light summer reading this is just the thing. I think I'll follow Stylist.co.uk's advice on books more carefully in the future!