Bloggy, blog, blog....
Feels like I've had a baby. Or to a less dramatic extent a goldfish.
I suppose I should start filling you, huh. Filling you will cool little perspectives on life and jazzy witticisms about modern day literature. Not fair to leave you hanging round cyber space naked and bare with all the other neglected blogs.
So no making fun of me, I'm new.
The Rosie Project by Aussie Graeme Simsions was released last year in good ol' 2013 (remember that year? He was kinda a dick) and won a poo ton of publishing and writing awards, and to be honest, its not hard to see why. Its hilarious* without making fun, sad without being pitiful but still manages to be hella romantic.
Lets first lay out what this makes this book so flipping great. Our main character is a University Professor of genetic engineering , Don Tillman, a extremely efficient chef, avid cyclist, all round hunk but unfortunately: painfully single. Don also has Asperger's Syndrome, a fact that neither occurs to him, nor is even necessarily stated in the book (which I personally think is a pure lightening bolt strike of genius by Simsion). His condition DOES, however, lead to some really amazingly funny incidences in social interactions. Think Sheldon Cooper meets the matchmaker and you've basically got this 295 pages of awesomeness.
So Don decides he wants a woman in his life. The perfect woman. Nothing wrong with that, most men, after all do. Don, however takes the word 'perfect' in its most literal meaning when he beings 'The Wife Project' in form of a questionnaire. Lets run through an example shall we?:
"'Question 35: Do you eat kidneys? Correct answer is (c) occasionally. Testing for food problems. If you ask directly about food preferences, they say "I eat anything" and then you discover they're a vegetarian'"
Dons dates vary in success.
Then he meets Rosie. Beautiful, wild, outspoken, who probably eats kidneys (a) extremely often. She's not perfect. But then again she is.
But do you know what I love most about this book? The things that's made it stick in my head for over a year, when all other summer books of 2013 have been long forgotten? The perspective it gives to how different minds work, that Simision couldn't have achieved if he had written in anything other than first person. During the character description of Don, I found myself typing, "who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome", but during the narrative Don in no way suffers from his differences! Suffering after all is such a nasty, extreme term. Don has grown up to be a extremely successful adult with a damn fine job with close friends, who finds no hindrance with his 'disability'. After all, Don's somewhat obsessive qualities are, one more than a handful of times, able to get him out of some pretty sticky situations. And i'm talking hot wax on hairy legs, sticky.
Rating
5/5 - Dogs Bollocks
* When i say hilarious I mean, laugh out loud like a dunce scare the cat kinda hilarious.
