The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, 295 pages

Don Tillman is a brilliant geneticist who would love to be married. And on paper he's quite a catch: intelligent, attractive, one heck of a good cook, and he's certainly no slob. But as someone who defines himself as socially awkward (the rest of us are fairly sure he's somewhere on the autism spectrum), Don doesn't exactly know the best way about getting himself a wife. To solve his problem, he creates The Wife Project, a detailed questionnaire designed to find the perfect candidate for a future mate. Enter Rosie, a wild card thrown in by Don's best (and almost only) friend Gene, who wants some help finding her biological father. Don agrees to help and, well, you can see where this is going.

And that's the thing about this book... it's obvious fairly early on exactly how Don's story will end. But what's great about this book is the charming way in which it reaches that destination. While I knew where I'd end up, I enjoyed every step of the journey. Don and Rosie, in particular, are well-realized characters, and while some of the situations they end up in seem ripped from a chick flick, they're at least ripped from a good chick flick. This was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a light, quick friendly read.