Professor Don Tillman is 'on the spectrum', though not quite aware of it himself. He is highly intelligent, very well-organised, more than a little bit weird, but very endearing. He devises an in-depth questionnaire to find a wife ('The Wife Project'), but it's not especially effective. Then he meets the entirely unsuitable Rosie, who is searching for her biological father. Don, seeing as he's a professor of genetics, decides to help. Hijinks/love/transformation ensue.
I was reading The Rosie Project at Melbourne airport when a woman sat down two seats from me in the boarding lounge and began reading the very same book! I wanted to exclaim 'book twins!' but I contained myself. Reading a novel that's being read by everybody is a foreign experience to me - I find the most popular novels tend to disappoint due to heightened expectations. I don't read a great deal of books for grown ups (SB loves YA 4evs), mainly because they're always so serious, and depressing. But so many people had recommended The Rosie Project, I had to read it. I think what really appeals about The Rosie Project - and makes it accessible to teenage readers as well as older people - is that it's uplifting. Which is really very refreshing. It's hilarious and heartwarming, and you know how it's going to end but it's the sort of book where that's just fine. It is very distinctly feel-good. And sometimes that's exactly what you want out of a novel.
Originally published in Young Vagabond.