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The Rosie Project

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He's a socially inept scientist who's tone deaf to irony. She's an edgy young woman whose fallback mode is sarcasm. Put them together, and hilarity ensues in Australian IT consultant Graeme Simsion's first novel, The Rosie Project . It's an utterly winning screwball comedy about a brilliant, emotionally challenged geneticist who's determined to find a suitable wife with the help of a carefully designed questionnaire, and the patently unsuitable woman who keeps distracting him from his search. If you're looking for sparkling entertainment along the lines of Where'd You Go Bernadette and When Harry Met Sally , The Rosie Project is this season's fix. The book wouldn't work, of course, if we couldn't see the sweetness and charm beneath Don Tillman's geekiness. But Simsion's hyper-efficient, fastidious 39-year-old narrator endears us from the moment he starts explaining his Wife Problem, which of course is directly related to his People Problem. Like Christopher Boone, the 15-year-old narrator of Mark Haddon's 2003 novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , he's appealing not just despite his eccentricities but because of them.

The running joke in The Rosie Project is that "Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others." This applies first and foremost to Don, who's clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum, and just as clearly oblivious about it. He's also oblivious about his attraction to Rosie Jarman, a beautiful doctoral candidate in psychology who first contacts him to settle a bet about an outlandish genetic question concerning the relationship between testicle size and monogamy.

Missing social cues right and left, Don is under the impression that Rosie has been sent by his best friend and colleague, Gene, as a candidate for his Wife Project. He also mistakes her part-time bartending job for her full-time identity, and finds her a spectacularly unsuitable prospect because she smokes, doesn't cook, and is always late.

Yet, in spite of himself – and his programmed-to-the-minute schedule – he gets pulled into Rosie's Father Project, a wild quest to identify her biological father. Their ribald pursuit of DNA swabs takes them all the way to New York, "where being weird is acceptable."

Graeme Simsion was an IT consultant before publishing The Rosie Project. James Penlidis hide caption

Graeme Simsion was an IT consultant before publishing The Rosie Project.

Don isn't stupid, and he knows he has problems with intimacy. But he finds it hard to understand why people have trouble with his time-saving Standardized Meal System (which reduces "cognitive load" by rotating seven hilariously elaborate dishes on a strict weekly schedule), or why his impermeable, clearly superior Gore-Tex jacket won't do at a posh restaurant where jackets are required. Over their first dinner together, he tells Rosie that she seems "quite intelligent for a barmaid." "The compliments just keep on coming," Rosie responds tartly — at which point Don reflects that "It seemed I was doing well, and I allowed myself a moment of satisfaction, which I shared with Rosie."

Although set in his ways and distinctly disadvantaged when it comes to tact, Don isn't immutable — and The Rosie Project is in part about the joy that can come from openness to change. A firm believer in self-improvement, he's convinced one can master anything through discipline and application, including boning quail, cocktail mixology, ballroom dancing and sexual positions, (the latter two learned from books and practiced with a skeleton from the university's anatomy department). When his philandering friend Gene asks if he's ever had sex, he says, "Of course ... It's just that adding a second person makes it more complicated."

"Fortunately I am accustomed to creating amusement inadvertently," Don remarks after cracking up his students by taking a personal call during a lecture. This charming, warm-hearted escapade, which celebrates the havoc — and pleasure — emotions can unleash, offers amusement aplenty. Sharp dialogue, terrific pacing, physical hijinks, slapstick, a couple to root for, and more twists than a pack of Twizzlers — it's no surprise that The Rosie Project is bound for the big screen. But read it first.

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The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion review – a geek icon returns for a so-so sequel

I t took just a year for Graeme Simsion's debut novel, The Rosie Project , to progress from an Australian prize for unpublished manuscripts to selling more than a million copies worldwide . But perhaps the most revealing fact about the book's all-conquering success was that it became Bill Gates's favourite novel . He described it as "profound".

The Rosie Project introduced the world to Don Tillman, a socially inept professor of genetics so wedded to his schedule that it has so far precluded becoming wedded to an actual woman. That any prospective partner must complete a mandatory 16-page compatibility questionnaire narrows his options somewhat; until, that is, he meets Rosie, who scores precisely zero, but confirms the theory that opposites attract.

The sequel finds the couple relocated to New York and working in the medical department of Columbia University. Don is in the middle of dicing vegetables for dinner – having first downloaded a measuring app to his phone to accurately gauge the half-inch dimensions of his "reference cube" – when Rosie announces that she is pregnant.

Don's reaction is Donnish in the extreme: "I was happy in the way that I would be happy if the captain of an aircraft in which I was travelling announced that he had succeeded in restarting one engine after both had failed. Pleased that I would now probably survive, but shocked that the situation had arisen in the first place, and expecting a thorough investigation into the circumstances."

Naturally this isn't quite the expression of paternal joy that Rosie had been hoping for, and the novel charts the inevitable strain that impending fatherhood brings to their relationship, culminating in the mandatory rom-com dash to the airport to salvage everything before it's too late.

Simsion is circumspect when asked where Tillman might be placed on the autism spectrum, claiming to have done no specific research into Asperger's syndrome other than to have worked in IT departments for 30 years. His great skill as a writer of comic fiction, however, is to engender an empathetic response to a character incapable of empathising with others. Don Tillman may be an emotional klutz, but he remains admirably self-aware: "My innate logical skills were significantly greater than my interpersonal skills. Without people like me, we would not have penicillin or computers."

Tillman has almost transcended the boundaries of fiction to become a geek icon (he even has his own Twitter account ), and for those who cannot get enough of his pedantic faux pas this hefty new instalment offers plenty more laugh-out-loud moments. A geneticist colleague of Tillman's observes that human beings are programmed for repetition: "If something feels good, we do it again", which suggests that a sequel was always likely to be on the cards. But to give a purely Tillmanesque assessment of the result, one would have to conclude that it fulfils a formula familiar to many sequels of bestelling novels in that it is twice as long and only half as good.

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By Gabriel Roth

• Oct. 18, 2013

Don Tillman doesn’t know he has Asperger’s syndrome, although his symptoms are obvious to friends and colleagues. He flinches from physical contact and cooks all his meals according to an unvarying schedule; his approach to courtship consists of handing women a detailed questionnaire to test their suitability.

It is a convention of romantic comedy that a man’s rigidly constrained existence must be disrupted by an impulsive and uninhibited woman, and Graeme Simsion’s “Rosie Project,” unlike its hero, is resolutely conventional. So along comes Rosie Jarman, “the world’s most incompatible woman . . . late, vegetarian, disorganized, irrational,” with her thick-soled boots and spiky red hair. (An associated convention dictates that this free-spirited heroine must appear to have stepped out of an issue of Sassy from 1994.)

Don becomes increasingly involved with Rosie, despite her evident unsuitability for his “Wife Project.” (He divides his endeavors into “projects” with capitalized names.) She wants to identify her biological father, and Don, a professor of genetics, offers to help surreptitiously collect and test samples of the candidates’ DNA. Forced out of his tightly structured routine by this “Father Project,” he finds adventure and, inevitably, love.

It’s cheering to read about, and root for, a romantic hero with a developmental disorder. “The Rosie Project,” Simsion’s debut and a best seller in his native Australia, reminds us that people who are neurologically atypical have many of the same concerns as the rest of us: companionship, ethics, alcohol.

In fact, Don is a more complex character than he at first appears. What seems to be Asperger’s-induced haplessness turns out, at least some of the time, to be a kind of strategic buffoonery. Don’s differences are real, but he plays up his eccentricities: he likes to see himself as an independent thinker with too much integrity to make ordinary social and professional compromises. With a light touch, Simsion suggests that Asperger’s symptoms can interact, in opaque ways, with human qualities like pride and stubbornness.

Don’s literal-mindedness can make him an amusing narrator, as when he equably tells us that a date “had chosen a dress with the twin advantages of coolness and overt sexual display.” But his insensitivity to the nuances of human speech and behavior sets a limit on the depth of the supporting characters; we see only those traits that are blatant enough to register with Don. (Stronger dialogue would help, as it did in Mark Haddon’s “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.”) As the DNA investigation unfolds, Rosie’s possible fathers blur into a mass of swabbed coffee cups and stolen toothbrushes.

“The Rosie Project” is the kind of Panglossian comedy in which everything is foreordained to work out for the best. That’s not a genre that can be dismissed entirely — at least not without sacrificing P. G. Wodehouse, which no one should be prepared to do — but it’s one that doesn’t comfortably accommodate things like autism spectrum disorders.

Halfway through the book, Don describes “the awkwardness, approaching revulsion, that I feel when forced into intimate contact with another human.” This would seem to be an obstacle to his and Rosie’s happiness — a greater obstacle, perhaps, than her low score on his compatibility questionnaire. Simsion waves the problem away in a post hoc last chapter. The ultimate convention of romantic comedy is that love conquers all, but to propose that it can so easily mitigate such a painful condition may be to take convention too far.

THE ROSIE PROJECT

By Graeme Simsion

295 pp. Simon & Schuster. $24.

Gabriel Roth is the author of the novel “The Unknowns.”

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The Rosie Project series

‘[Don Tillman] has almost transcended the boundaries of fiction to become a geek icon.’ — Guardian

As an autistic advocate and author I loved how Graeme Simsion approached the topic of autism. It resonated with my own experience. — Yenn Purkis

The Rosie Project series comprises three novels featuring autistic protagonist Don Tillman: The Rosie Project (2013), The Rosie Effect (2014) and The Rosie Result (2019) plus Don Tillman’s Standardized Meal System. Two stand-alone stories featuring Don are included in Creative Differences and Other Stories. The series has sold more than 6 million books in 40 languages.

First published by Text Publishing, 30 January 2013

‘An extraordinarily clever, funny, and moving book about being comfortable with who you are and what you’re good at…This is one of the most profound novels I’ve read in a long time.’ — Bill Gates

‘Funny and heartwarming, a gem of a book.’ — Marian Keyes

‘1930s screwball comedy updated for 2013…like those films, underscored with writing meticulously judged…Extremely loud and incredibly long applause.’ — Age/SMH/Canberra Times/Brisbane Times

‘Quietly profound.’ — Independent

‘It’s not hard to see why the Rosie novels have been welcomed by the autism community…Simsion’s message of inclusiveness and embracing differences is lovely…’ — NPR

‘One of the most endearing, charming and fascinating literary characters I have met in a long time.’ — The Times

‘The charm of this story is Simsion’s affectionate depiction of his strange, flawed, infuriating, logical and always amusing protagonist.’ — Weekend Australian

‘ Don Tillman is utterly and beautifully unique and, be warned, you will fall in love with him.’ — Australian Women’s Weekly

‘What an endearing, funny book… A must read.’ — Courier Mail/Daily Telegraph

‘One of the quirkiest, most adorable novels I’ve come across… a brilliant first novel from a mature, clever writer.’ — NZ Herald on Sunday

‘Graeme Simsion has created perhaps the first thoroughly comic autistic hero…’ — Guardian

‘Funny, endearing, and pure, wonderful escapism.’ — Independent

‘…Simsion has fashioned a very funny and touching love story… a clever satire on modern, internet-led dating… — Sunday Express

‘ found the crack in our seemingly interminable winter to let laughter and light flood in.’ — Sunday Times UK

‘[Don Tillman is] one of the most endearing, charming and fascinating literary characters I have met in a long time.’ — The Times

‘Crackling with wit and boasting an almost perfectly calibrated heartbreak-to-romance ratio…joins ranks with the best romantic comedies of our age.’ — Globe and Mail Canada

‘ You’ll be laughing out loud at Don’s misadventures.’ — Daily Mail

‘ a completely charming story that is as engaging as it is funny.’ — Independent

The Rosie Project

Don Tillman is getting married. He just doesn’t know who to yet.

But he has designed the Wife Project, using a sixteen-page questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also fiery and intelligent and beautiful. And on a quest of her own to find her biological father—a search that Don, a professor of genetics, might just be able to help her with.

The Wife Project teaches Don some unexpected things. Why earlobe length is an inadequate predictor of sexual attraction. Why quick-dry clothes aren’t appropriate attire in New York. Why he’s never been on a second date. And why, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love: love finds you.

‘I didn’t have autism explicitly in mind when I wrote The Rosie Project. I was just drawing on a kind of person that I’d met throughout my life, from being a science geek as a kid, amateur radio, a physics degree, working in information technology. I didn’t read any clinical descriptions and I think that’s the strength of the characterisation: it comes from people I’ve known, been friends with, loved, rather than a concept of a disease or deficit. – GCS

65 weeks on the NYT bestseller list

No. 1 bestseller in Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, Taiwan…

Winner, Australian Book Industry Awards, Best Novel and Book of the Year, 2014

Winner, Victorian Premier’s Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript, 2012

Shortlisted, ABA Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award, 2014

Shortlisted, The Indie Awards, 2014

Shortlisted, Waverton Good Read Award, United Kingdom, 2014

Longlisted, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Ireland, 2015

Interviews and Reviews

Independent : The 10 greatest love stories in literature   Booktopia interview Readings Shearer’s Bookshop interview Joan’s Pick (Whitcoulls NZ) The Small Picture Podcasts ABC Radio Perth review Boomerang Books profile The Wheeler Centre Q&A Radio NZ interview Australian Writers’ Centre podcast BBC Radio 2 interview   Canberra Readers, Writers and Storytellers Festival Tom Ballard podcast: What’s the Story?   Independent    

First published by Text Publishing, 24 September 2014

‘I had concluded that being myself, with all my intrinsic flaws, was more important than having the thing I wanted most.’ — The Rosie Effect

‘[A] romantic comedy that’s just as smart, funny and heartwarming as the original.’ — Washington Post

‘A wholly absorbing, vivid read that leaves you pining to be reunited with its characters every time you put it down—if you’re able to.’ — Independent

‘Unlike most sequels, this second book is very close to being as good as the first…The writing is witty and the characters charming,,,’ — Dominion Post

‘This good-hearted, pacy, thoroughly enjoyable novel takes a significant step towards showing that all human variants are a potential source of life‑affirming comedy.’ — Guardian

‘Don Tillman…is a gem, an empirical laser trained on human shortcomings, Through him, Simsion…deals with issues of nature, nurture, gender, free will and the vagaries of the human heart with a deceptively light touch.’ — Evening Standard

‘ no less than classic Hitchcockian suspense…’ — NPR

‘There’s no sophomore [second-novel] slump here…It’s a funny novel that also made me think about relationships: what makes them work and how we have to keep investing time and energy to make them better. A sweet, entertaining, and thought-provoking book.’ — Bill Gates

‘Don Tillman helps us believe in possibility, makes us proud to be human beings, and the bonus is this: he keeps us laughing like hell. I’d love to have a beer with the humane and hilarious Graeme Simsion.’ — Matthew Quick, New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Lining Playbook

‘Don himself, pedantically single-focused as ever, is increasingly charismatic and the left-field resolution of his problems is as satisfyingly credible as it is delightfully unexpected.’ — Adelaide Advertiser

‘Very sweet, very wry.’ — West Australian

‘The Rosie Effect is a successful sequel…with a memorable main character and plenty of heart.’ — Weekend Australian

‘As endearing as its predecessor.’ — NW

‘Another rollicking ride. I can only hope the madcap journey isn’t over yet.’ — Otago Daily Times

‘Don’s struggle to fit in with “ordinary” society makes for charming reading and the novel has insightful as well as comic moments.’ — NZ Herald on Sunday

‘This charming new chapter in the Tillman chronicles leaves you hoping it won’t be the last.’ — People

‘[A] winning sequel…The Rosie Effect is a celebration of the best attributes to be found in a friend, a husband, or a father, regardless of the way they are expressed.’  STARRED Review — Booklist

‘Brilliantly funny.’ — International Traveller

‘In Simsion’s hands, Don’s voice once again shines as one of the most unique in contemporary fiction.’ — Everyday Ebook

The Rosie Effect

‘We’ve got something to celebrate,’ Rosie said.

I am not fond of surprises, especially if they disrupt plans already in place. I assumed that she had achieved some important milestone with her thesis. Or perhaps she had been offered a place in the psychiatry-training programme. This would be extremely good news, and I estimated the probability of sex at greater than 80%.

‘We’re pregnant,’ she said.

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.

The Rosie Effect is as charming and hilarious as its predecessor.

New York Times Bestseller

No. 1 Globe and Mail Bestseller, Canada

Shortlisted, Indie Book Awards, 2015

Shortlisted, Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award, 2015

Shortlisted, Australian Book Industry General Fiction Award, 2015

Interviews and reviews

Enchanted Prose    NPR  

Half a Page of Scribbled Lines   RMIT News 891 ABC Adelaide for Adelaide Writers Week 2015 ABC Radio National Books & Arts Daily Write Note Reviews

First published by Text Publishing, 5 February 2019

‘Resilience appeared to be the equivalent of toughening up, which, when I was a child, was a general excuse for bullying.’ — The Rosie Result

‘Eloquent, and insightful, The Rosie Result is a triumphant conclusion to Don’s story, one that celebrates this remarkable father, husband, and friend in all his complexity and brilliance. — Booklist (starred review)

[A] thoughtful and provocative novel [with] a grand design that will have relevance in the lives of many individual readers… —  Age

‘Heart-warming and clever’ — Daily Mail

‘Deals with issues of nature, nurture, gender, free will and the vagaries of the human heart with a deceptively light touch.’ — Evening Standard

‘Simsion hits just the right balance between serious literary exploration of social issues and the delightfully humorous (mis)adventures of an unusual but good-intentioned modern family… — New York Journal of Books

‘It’s a pleasure to inhabit Don’s rational mindset again’ — Australian

‘The comedy is still there but there’s a philosophical seriousness to this one, which brings the whole issue much closer to home. I liked it very much and I recommend it.’ — The Bookshelf, Radio National

‘It is an ambitious task: writing a light and engaging novel while incorporating a serious topic in an inclusive manner. But Simsion pulls it off, maintaining a strong sense of characterisation and narrative, all the while encouraging readers to question their own values.’  — Conversation

‘For a read that appears light on the surface, The Rosie Result contains a lot of depth…  the strongest book in the series…’  — Reader NZ

Graeme Simsion breaks open the ‘A’ word by smashing preconceived prejudices and stereotypes — Kathy Hoopmann, author of All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome

‘An engaging story full of wit and humour, yet sensitive and sad at times too.’ — Weekly Times

‘Expect lots of laughs and plenty to ponder over.’ — SA Weekend

‘Graeme Simsion tackles some of the heavy issues of our day – autism, gender roles, political correctness – but his light touch makes this novel a fun and satisfying read.’ — Sunday Express S Magazine

‘[T]his is a must-read; for everyone, it is uplifting, eye-opening and definite food for thought.’ — My Weekly

‘Simsion delivers a brave attempt at asking important questions without compromising his characters’ respective journeys, nor losing his trademark mix of humour and emotion…The resolution feels earned and genuinely heartwarming. — Independent

‘although [Don’s] social awkwardness gives rise to many genuinely funny moments, the laughs are never cheap or mean…’ — Otago Daily Times

‘the ideal ending to the trilogy.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘ the emotionally raw conclusion to an endearing series, and it will surely leave readers satisfied.’ — BookTrib

‘…a fitting conclusion to a trilogy that explores the human condition in a uniquely nuanced way.’ — San Francisco Chronicle

‘Simsion returns to comic form seamlessly…A meditation on parenting in our times, an indictment of discrimination and a fond farewell to a one-of-a-kind character.’ — Shelf Awareness

‘Clever, moving and laugh out loud funny.’ — Toronto Sun

The Rosie Result

I was standing on one leg shucking oysters when the problems began…

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back in Australia after a decade in New York, and they’re about to face their most important challenge.

Their son, Hudson, is struggling at school: he’s socially awkward and not fitting in. Don’s spent a lifetime trying to fit in—so who better to teach Hudson the skills he needs?

The Hudson Project will require the help of friends old and new, force Don to decide how much to guide Hudson and how much to let him be himself, and raise some significant questions about his own identity.

Meanwhile, there are multiple distractions to deal with: the Genetics Lecture Outrage, Rosie’s troubles at work, estrangement from his best friend Gene…

And opening the world’s best cocktail bar.

Hilarious and thought-provoking, with a brilliant cast of characters, The Rosie Result is the triumphant final instalment of the much-loved and internationally bestselling Rosie trilogy.

Read a sample chapter of The Rosie Result.

As the series progressed, particularly with The Rosie Result which was written a decade after I began The Rosie Project, I became more aware of and involved in the autism community , and, given the volume of sales, realised that the books were going to be influential in how readers perceived autism. So, I did my best to get it right, recognising that autism presents in different ways in different people. In The Rosie Result, we have multiple autistic characters, and I think that’s unusual: you think of a book or TV series or movie featuring autism, and usually there’s only one autistic person. But birds of a feather …’

2SER: Final Draft 2SER: Tuesday Book Club 3CR (15:00) 3RRR: Backstory (0:11:30) ABC Radio National: The Book Show   ABC Radio: Evenings (2:30:00) ABC Radio: Nightlife (1:00:00) ABC Radio: Saturday Breakfast ABC Radio Hobart: Your Afternoon ( 1:42:00) ABC Radio Perth: Drive   ABC Radio Southwest Victoria (autoplay) Age Australian ($) Australian Financial Review ($) Booktopia Booktrib   BreakThru Radio: Book Talk   Canberra Times Cass Moriarty Channel 10: Studio 10 Book Club The Conversation    Entertainment Weekly   Global News Canada (video autoplay) Guardian : Bookmark This Herald Sun ($) Hope FM: Hope Book Club   Independent (UK) Library Journal (starred review)  Library Journal   Mary Dalmau ‘The Rosie trilogy is deserving of the accolades it has garnered and The Rosie Result is the best possible goodbye to the world of Don Tillman.’ Mum’s Lounge: 18 Books to Add to Your Must-Read List This Summer   New Daily Newstalk ZB   Not Weird Just Autistic podcast   The Osher Günsberg Podcast: Episode 1 The Osher Günsberg Podcast: Episode 2 Radio National  (approx. 48:00) ‘The comedy is still there but there’s a philosophical seriousness to this one, which brings the whole issue much closer to home. I liked it very much and I recommend it.’ Radio National: All in the Mind Radio New Zealand The Reader ( Booksellers NZ Blog) San Francisco Chronicle   Shelf Awareness   Sydney Morning Herald : Good Weekend   Toronto Sun   Wheeler Centre podcast   Your Second Draft  ‘ The Rosie Result is a funny, generous and thoughtful trip through finding fulfilment and living with the choices we make.’

First published by Text Publishing, 3 December 2019

‘So, you cook this same meal every Tuesday, right?’ ‘Correct.’ I listed the eight major advantages of the Standardised Meal System. 1. No need to accumulate recipe books. 2. Standard shopping list—hence very efficient shopping. 3. Almost zero waste—nothing in the refrigerator or pantry unless required for one of the recipes. 4. Diet planned and nutritionally balanced in advance. 5. No time wasted wondering what to cook. 6. No mistakes, no unpleasant surprises. 7. Excellent food, superior to most restaurants at a much lower price (see point 3). 8. Minimal cognitive load required. ‘Cognitive load?’ ‘The cooking procedures are in my cerebellum—virtually no conscious effort is required.’ ‘Like riding a bike.’ ‘Correct.’

Don Tillman's Standardized Meal System

Here at last, by popular demand, is the weekly system of food preparation that Professor Don Tillman, star of the Rosie trilogy, lives by—everything from his signature lobster salad to the world’s best risotto, across the four seasons. This essential guide also includes handy tips about losing weight, mixing cocktails and stress-free entertaining.

Don Tillman’s Standardized Meal System will not only show you how to make delicious meals: it will open your mind to a different way of shopping, cooking and living. The Don Tillman way.

‘ Writing this little book was probably not the smartest use of my time – testing the recipes took forever. And if  you’re looking for a recipe book, you can surely do better. DTSMS is really a vehicle for sharing a bit more of Don Tillman’s quirky but (usually) rational approach to life – and particularly to cooking and entertaining, which can occupy more than their share of brain space. At one time I saw it as a precursor to a column ‘What would Don do?’ and I have to admit that I’ve asked myself that question at times of crisis. I used to say that if I got one good idea out of a conference session or popular business book, I’d consider I’d done well. Hopefully there are enough life hacks in here to justify the purchase.’ — GCS

‘ I didn’t really do cocktails – I’m more of a wine guy – till I had to research them for The Rosie Project. Now I drink them more often than is healthy.’ — GCS

Yuzu Margarita (Created using Don Tillmans’ Sour Generator)

2 shots blanco tequila 1 shot fresh lime juice 1/2 shot yuzu syrup Shake with lots of ice for at least 45 seconds (critical!) and pour into chilled coupes, optionally salt-rimmed.

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The Rosie Project

By graeme simsion, a lighthearted and comedic love story for the overly logical.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a lighthearted, funny, and highly enjoyable love story for all the nerds out there. Professor Don Tillman is a geneticist with Asperger’s Syndrome who embarks on a project to find a “suitable mate” (the “Wife Project”). But instead, he gets sidetracked by a woman named Rosie and her search for her biological father (the “Rosie Project”). Of course, the two projects end up coming together and what results is a delightful love story.

I finished this a while ago but hadn’t gotten around to reviewing it until now. It, along with its sequel, The Rosie Effect , comes highly recommended from Bill Gates’ blog , which is what piqued my interest to begin with.

The Rosie Project is unabashedly a love story, through and through, so you know pretty much from the onset where it’s going to end up, but listening in to the thought processes of our protagonist is genuinely funny and revealing, especially if you know people with Aspergers or who are just logical to a fault. It’s a romance and a book about accepting and embracing yourself and about two people coming together — with a pinch of mystery and adventure as Rosie and Don sleuth to figure out who Rosie’s father is. In all, it has a lot of heart and is very funny; the humor is dead-pan and a little sardonic, but very present.

This book is definitely not your typical “chick lit”-type book, but it’s lighthearted enough that it still makes for a good beach-slash-casual read. I think most people could find something to like about it, but the lovers of logic out there would especially appreciate it. It’s an easy and enjoyable book, so I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot.

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THE ROSIE PROJECT

by Graeme Simsion ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2013

A sparkling, laugh-out-loud novel.

Polished debut fiction, from Australian author Simsion, about a brilliant but emotionally challenged geneticist who develops a questionnaire to screen potential mates but finds love instead. The book won the 2012 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. 

“I became aware of applause. It seemed natural. I had been living in the world of romantic comedy and this was the final scene. But it was real.” So Don Tillman, our perfectly imperfect narrator and protagonist, tells us. While he makes this observation near the end of the book, it comes as no surprise—this story plays the rom-com card from the first sentence. Don is challenged, almost robotic. He cannot understand social cues, barely feels emotion and can’t stand to be touched. Don’s best friends are Gene and Claudia, psychologists. Gene brought Don as a postdoc to the prestigious university where he is now an associate professor. Gene is a cad, a philanderer who chooses women based on nationality—he aims to sleep with a woman from every country. Claudia is tolerant until she’s not. Gene sends Rosie, a graduate student in his department, to Don as a joke, a ringer for the Wife Project. Finding her woefully unsuitable, Don agrees to help the beautiful but fragile Rosie learn the identity of her biological father. Pursuing this Father Project, Rosie and Don collide like particles in an atom smasher: hilarity, dismay and carbonated hormones ensue. The story lurches from one set piece of deadpan nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor to another: We laugh at, and with, Don as he tries to navigate our hopelessly emotional, nonliteral world, learning as he goes. Simsion can plot a story, set a scene, write a sentence, finesse a detail. A pity more popular fiction isn’t this well-written. If you liked Australian author Toni Jordan's  Addition  (2009), with its math-obsessed, quirky heroine, this book is for you.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4767-2908-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: April 12, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013

ROMANCE | GENERAL FICTION

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by Graeme Simsion & Anne Buist

by Graeme Simsion

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Kirkus Prize winner

National Book Award Finalist

A LITTLE LIFE

by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

GENERAL FICTION

More by Hanya Yanagihara

by Hanya Yanagihara

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PERSPECTIVES

FIREFLY LANE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008

Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...

Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest ( Magic Hour , 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.

Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today -like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3

Page Count: 496

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007

GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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by Kristin Hannah

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Review: ‘The Rosie Project,’ by Graeme Simsion, is a classic romantic comedy

It's natural to be wary of a novel that's been the target of such gushy praise . Publishers in at least 38 countries have snapped up the rights to " The Rosie Project ," which has been touted as a "publishing phenomenon," an "international sensation" and no less than "the feel-good hit of 2013."

Well, squelch your inner cynic: The hype is justified. Australian Graeme Simsion has written a genuinely funny novel. It's told in the voice of a 39-year-old genetics professor named Don Tillman, who has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism that affects his social skills. (Once, while delivering a lecture, he calls on "the fat woman — overweight woman — at the back," then expresses relief to have so quickly corrected this "minor social error.") As a result, he has only two friends: Gene, a philandering fellow professor, and Claudia, Gene's psychologist wife.

Encouraged by his friends and knowing that “married men are happier and live longer,” Tillman begins the Wife Project — an earnest attempt to find the proper mate. He’s “tall, fit, and intelligent,” he tells himself. “In the animal kingdom, I would succeed in reproducing.” In the real world? Not so much. He starts his search disastrously, with a questionnaire for potential dates that includes freakishly selective questions such as “Do you eat kidneys?” (The correct answer is “Occasionally.”) A singles party and a speed-dating event prove equally fruitless.

By chance and apart from the Wife Project, he meets Rosie, a woman who smokes, can’t cook, doesn’t exercise, is chronically late and declares herself a vegetarian — all of which flat-out disqualifies her, according to the Wife Project questionnaire. Yet Tillman is intrigued when he learns that Rosie is seeking the identity of her biological father, and he’s thrown by the fact that he has such fun in real life with someone who appears so inappropriate on paper.

Simsion, a former IT consultant, wrote “The Rosie Project” as a screenplay. He later turned it into a novel, and last year he won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. The buzz spread fast: Sony Pictures has optioned the screen rights.

Reading this novel, you can't help casting the film in your head: Who'll play the lovably awkward (and, the book makes clear, fit and handsome) lead character? Paul Rudd, maybe. Rosie? Jennifer Lawrence, in " Silver Linings Playbook " mode. Definitely.

There’s no denying that this is classic rom-com. “I had been living in the world of romantic comedy,” Tillman notes toward the happy ending, “and this was the final scene.”

The rosiest news of all is that it's not the final scene: Simsion is writing a sequel.

Ianzito is a writer and editor in Washington.

THE ROSIE PROJECT

By Graeme Simsion

Simon & Schuster. 295 pp. $24

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the rosie project.

Graeme Simsion’s THE ROSIE PROJECT is a romantic comedy about an unusually specific man, but it still manages to be universal as it deals with the contradictions of being human. Don Tillman, like many of us, is observant about other people, but fails to have basic insights about himself. He, also like many of us, says he wants one quite specific thing, but when presented with reality, he wants something entirely different.

Don is a genetics professor who cooks, works out, and acquires and masters new skills quickly. He is also single, due mostly to his lack of social skills. In fact, he has never had a second date. As the narrator, Don gives us an inside look at his orderly, efficient view of the world and its inhabitants. However, the reader quickly makes observations about Don that he cannot make himself. For instance, while giving a lecture about Asperger’s syndrome, he is describing himself without ever realizing it.

"Simsion has created a strong, singular and consistent voice. Rather than alienating the reader, he manages to use Don to exaggerate qualities that lie in all of us."

The plot sets in motion shortly after this, when he decides to embark on the Wife Project, a questionnaire he creates and then refines to find the perfect wife. She must work out but not be concerned with her looks. No smokers. No vegetarians. No picky eaters of any kind. He’s looking for someone logical and orderly to fit neatly into his meticulous world.

His married friends Gene and Claudia decide to throw in a “wild card” submission named Rosie, who is on her own search as well. Having been raised by her disappointing stepfather Phil after her mother died, Rosie has never met her actual father. She knows he is a former classmate of her mother’s from a drunken graduation night celebration. Rosie is, of course, all wrong for Don: a vegetarian smoker bartender who is usually running late and wearing makeup. Don quickly rules her out as a potential wife, but finds himself inclined to help her in her own search, the Father Project, though he is unable to articulate why.

From there, THE ROSIE PROJECT develops these two characters and provides the reader with several hilarious scenes of awkward social encounters and failed amateur espionage. Among these is a gem where he fails to realize Rosie works at a gay bar.

Don, with the aid of those around him, gradually learns that logic, order and efficiency have little to do with human relationships, romantic or otherwise. He begins to empathize with his friends and see their marriage is struggling. He is able to discern facts about Phil and Rosie’s relationship that she is not. The reader, however, stays two steps ahead of Don throughout the novel, watching him come to terms with the world around him as we all have to do from time to time.

Simsion has created a strong, singular and consistent voice. Rather than alienating the reader, he manages to use Don to exaggerate qualities that lie in all of us. Everyone struggles to relate to the outside world, see themselves as they really are, and accept what it is that we really want. Don has those qualities in spades, which makes him more human than most and his journey all the more satisfying.

Reviewed by Josh Mallory on October 11, 2013

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

• Publication Date: October 1, 2013
• Genres: Fiction , Humor , Romance
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• ISBN-10: 1476729085
• ISBN-13: 9781476729084

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Review: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Summary  

Don Tillman, genetics professor, is getting married. Or he will be, when his sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey yields a candidate (see: the Wife Project). Designed to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the vegans, the late arrivers, Don’s questionnaire is, for this socially challenged academic, the most logical method to find the perfect partner.

Enter Rosie Jarman.

Don quickly disqualifies her as a potential wife but is drawn into Rosie’s quest to find her biological father (see: the Father Project). When something like a friendship develops, Don must confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie and the decidedly unscientific conclusion that sometimes you don’t find love, it finds you.

To say Professor Don Tillman is quirky would be an understatement. Odd would even be an understatement. Alien might be more up his alley. Don isn’t like other people. He says “greetings,” instead of “hello.” He has a Standardized Meal System and he calculates every minute of every day of daily activities. He doesn’t socialize very well, with an inability to pick up on social cues that come second nature to most. But like you and me, Don would like to find love or at least a partner (a female partner) to spend with for the rest of his life; thus the beginning of the Wife Project.

The Wife Project is a sixteen page questionnaire (more like job application), weeding out the smokers, disorganized and uneducated women that Don is not interested in. This way, he doesn’t have to go on dates or be put through socially awkward conversations to find “the one.” The perfect woman shall be delivered and all without him lifting a finger. Then comes along Rosie.

Rosie is clearly unsuitable and incompatible for Don. She is never on time, is not skilled at math, a bartender and worse yet, she is a smoker. However, she is attractive and Don does find that he can be himself around her and not offend her with his awkwardness. But still, clearly not “wife” material.

Although, it turns out that there is a reason to Rosie’s dysfunctional behavior, she doesn’t know who her real father is. Now normally Don would not see a problem with this, from an emotional standpoint. But from a psychological and genetics standpoint, not knowing where you come from could affect who you are mentally and genetically. As far as Don is concerned, it is his scientific duty to help Rosie find out who her real father is. Or so that is how he rationalizes it to himself.

Now Don is spending all his spare time either with Rosie or working on the Father Project for Rosie. Thus Don finds himself posing as a bartender, pretending to be Rosie’s boyfriend to meet old family friends, flying off to New York and spending a whole week together; all to gather DNA for potential father candidates. Yet Don finds that he actually likes bartending. But even more so, he likes spending time with Rosie. He finds himself opening up to her and abandoning more of the person he was, adapting into someone more social and less calculated. He has even illegally used the university equipment to test candidates for Rosie. Don is doing things that go against everything he believes in and all for a woman. What has happened to Don Tillman? Has he fallen in love?  

The Rosie Project is not only a love story but also a story of self improvement and self discovery. The Rosie Project shows us that we are all strangers in one way or another, just trying to fit in, find acceptance with someone, anyone. The Rosie Project also shows us that what we think isn’t always what is. How we see ourselves isn’t always how others see us and vice versa. Perception is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes our eyes can be faulty. But most importantly, The Rosie Project teaches us that age old truth that there is someone for everyone. We just have to be open to the possibility. 

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes

Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (June 3, 2014)

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Booklover Book Reviews

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, Review: Non-neurotypical humour

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a modern take on the classic screwball romance tackling tough societal issues with compassion and hilarity. Read on for why I think this is groundbreaking contemporary literature.

The Rosie Project  Synopsis

The art of love is never a science.

Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife.

In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs The Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a 16-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. Yet, Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Although Don easily disqualifies her as a suitable candidate (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”), he is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father.

When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie and the realisation that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you.

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BOOK REVIEW

The Rosie Project  by Graeme Simsion has been labelled ‘the feel-good novel of 2013’ — it is that and so much more. This very modern take on the classic screwball romance tackles some tough societal issues with just the right mix of hilarity and compassion. The mystery plotline was sufficiently complex to be compelling in its own right also.

In Don Tillman, Simsion has created one of the most charming and endearing characters I have come across in literature – he’s quite hard to describe… perhaps think Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory  with a touch of Ben Stiller’s character in Meet the Parents  and a helping of old-world gallantry.

What I particularly liked about The Rosie Project is that it’s not just the behaviour of protagonist Don Tillman that is satirized. The whole ragtag cast of ostensibly more ‘normal’ and ‘socially acceptable’ characters Simsion has surrounded him with are considered through the same lens. In this way, Simsion highlights that there are more similarities than differences between us all.

Audio format

I listened to The Rosie Project in the audio format narrated by Dan O’Grady . I think his delivery really captured Don’s guilelessness and enthusiastic pursuit for happiness, coupled with the insecurities and frustrations he commonly felt when trying to negotiate the minefield of social interaction.

But why, why, why can’t people just say what they mean?

For all the laugh out loud moments, and there were many, the underlying messaging is mature and nuanced. Weaknesses can become strengths in the right context, but sometimes we can derive benefit (for ourselves, not just for others) by moderating our behaviour.

Groundbreaking contemporary fiction

The Rosie Project does not fit into any single fiction genre I can think of other than contemporary.

It is not quite chick-lit, nor is it quite lad-lit – it is something more unique. Male and female alike will be the better for having read this book.

It is easy to see why the rights for The Rosie Project have been sold to more than 30 countries. Graeme Simsion has combined the universal themes of acceptance and the pursuit of happiness with a wonderfully flawed leading man and a colourful ensemble cast. The end result is a truly memorable and uplifting reading experience.

UPDATE:  Graeme spoke candidly about the people in his life that inspired the Don Tillman character in a Brisbane Writers Festival session I was lucky enough to attend >>  Read full article .

BOOK RATING:  The Story 4.5 / 5 ; The Writing 5 / 5  —  Overall 4.75

Get your copy of The Rosie Project from:

Amazon Book Depository Booktopia OR listen to the audiobook FREE with Audible’s Trial (check eligibility)

Genre: Humour, Romance, Mystery, Audio, Drama

Related Reads: Read our reviews of Simsion’s sequel The Rosie Effect (2014), The Rosie Result (2019), his standalone novel The Best of Adam Sharp (2016) and Two Steps Forward (2017) & Two Steps Onward (2021) co-written with his wife Anne Buist.

* This review counts towards my participation in the Aussie Author Challenge 2013 .

About the Author, Graeme Simsion

Graeme Simsion was born in 1956 . He is an IT consultant and data analyst with an international reputation, has taught at four Australian universities and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Melbourne University. He is a founder of Pinot Now, a wine importer and distributor, and is married to Anne Buist , a professor of psychiatry who writes erotic fiction. They have two children.

In 2007, Graeme completed his PhD in information systems and enrolled in the professional screenwriting course at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He has made a number of short films. His screenplay, The Rosie Project , won the Australian Writers Guild / Inception Award for Best Romantic Comedy Script in 2010. While waiting for this to be produced, he turned it into a novel which in June 2012 won the Victorian Premier’s award for an unpublished fiction manuscript .

Check out Graeme’s website or connect with him on Twitter .

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A booklover with diverse reading interests, who has been reviewing books and sharing her views and opinions on this website and others since 2009.

'The Rosie Project' by Graeme Simsion

Book Club Discussion Questions

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In some ways, by Graeme Simsion is a light, fun read for book clubs that need a break from heavy books. Simsion does, however, give groups plenty to discuss about Asperger syndrome , love, and relationships . Hopefully, these questions will help you have fun discussing the book.

Spoiler Warning: These questions contain details from the end of the novel. Finish the book before reading on.

Discussion Questions

• Don's character is both more aware of some dynamics (social, genetic, etc) and also very oblivious to some of these. Take, for instance, when he is giving the lecture on Asperger syndrome and he says, "A woman at the rear of the room raised her hand. I was focused on the argument now and made a minor social error, which I quickly corrected. 'The fat woman— ​ an overweight woman—at the back?'" (10) What are some other examples of this kind of behavior that you remember from the novel? How did this add humor?
• The reader is supposed to understand that Don has Asperger syndrome. If you know anyone with this diagnosis, did you think it was an accurate portrayal?
• There were several times in the novel when Don misses the social rules , but the case he makes for his side is very logical. One example is the "Jacket incident" (43) when he does not understand that "jacket required" means suit jacket and tries to argue all the ways his Gore-tex jacket is superior. Did you find this, and other times like it, amusing? What were some of your favorite scenes? Did hearing his perspective make you rethink social conventions? (Or consider using the standardized meal plan?)
• Why do you think Don is so drawn to Rosie? Why do you think Rosie is drawn to Don?
• At one point, Don says about one of the father candidates, "Apparently he had been an oncologist but had not detected the cancer in himself, a not-uncommon scenario. Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others" (82). How does this statement, about people failing to see what is in front of them, apply to the different characters in the novel?
• Why do you think Don was so successful at selling cocktails? Did you enjoy this scene?
• The novel mentions that Don struggled with depression in his early twenties and also talked about his strained relationship with his family. How did he cope with these issues? Are he and Rosie similar in the ways they deal with hard parts of their past?
• What did you think of Gene and Claudia's relationship? Was Gene's behavior humorous or frustrating to you?
• Did you think it was believable in the end that Don would be able to see from the Dean's perspective, the perspective of the student who cheated, Claudia's perspective, etc? Why or why not?
• Did you guess who Rosie's real father was? Which parts of the Father Project did you like the most (the basement confrontation, the bathroom escape, the trip to the nursing home, etc)?
• Graeme Simsion published a sequel to The Rosie Project in December 2014— The Rosie Effect . Do you think the story could go on? Would you read the sequel?
• Rate The Rosie Project on a scale of 1 to 5.
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