Review: The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect

I'm reviewing both of these books together, but please understand that I will actually gush more about how hysterical I found The Rosie Project.

I read this book in a day. I'm not even joking. I started it on a Friday night and I'd finished it by Saturday evening. I haven't done that with a non-romance book in ages. 

My husband could hear me laughing, and he was in the man cave (aka basement) while I read in our bedroom upstairs.

Don Tillman, the narrator of these books, works as a genetics professor at an Australian university. You learn early on that he's very much into fitness and knows martial arts. I decided he looked like Eric Bana.

Here he is shirtless and holding a book. Excellent.

So, this guy is a genius, but has undiagnosed Asperger's. Think Sheldon Cooper, but not quite as horrible with other human beings. Don't think that means he's more socially adept. He really isn't. But, for instance, he drinks. This automatically put him in my good graces.

Dating doesn't work for him. He manages to scare his dates off. Not because of creepiness, but because he really doesn't know when to stop talking. He also doesn't know when a woman is hitting on him. I won't reveal too many details, since I can't do justice to these scenes. They had me giggling the whole time, though.

His socially ineptitude leads him to thinking that, if he wants to at some point get married, he will have to go about it in a non-traditional manner. He decides that he should employ more scientific methods to his search. He calls this the Wife Project. This project includes a questionnaire prospective candidates need to fill out before he goes on a date with him.

It sounds awful, but Graeme Simsion makes this work. Not because he can make this not awful, but because he really gets you into Don's head. If he couldn't make Don lovable and sympathetic, this book would not work.

Long story short, Rosie Jarman enters Don's life. During their first date, she walks into the restaurant after he's had to make use of his martial arts skills with the security staff. (It's funny. Trust me.) Rosie has her own issues, but social ineptitude does not figure among them. Don and Rosie's courtship takes the reader on a hilarious ride.

The Rosie Project also had really poignant and heartbreaking moments. During one part of the book, I got quite teary. Simsion does a fantastic job of making these characters real and relatable. I'm recommending this book to anyone that might listen.

Also, it's going to be made into a movie. Sweet baby Jesus, I hope they don't mess it up!

I'll mention a little something about The Rosie Effect. So, I think the fact the reader gets the story only from Don's perspective made the story here not work. At some points in the story, I hated Rosie. Don doesn't hate her, by the way, so that's not the problem. But I had to keep stopping to remind myself that I only had Don's side of the story. I didn't want to hate Rosie. I really didn't. But, it got to a point where I wondered what the hell a grown ass woman was doing acting the way she acted.

Anyway! If you're at all like me, you'll read both books because you want to know what happens. And, honestly, The Rosie Project is so much fun, that I'm recommending these despite my reservations about the second book.

Also, here's another picture of how I hope Don looks in the movie:

Yass,

Musings: Should I Buy/Checkout More Books? (Yes. Always.)

I follow a few reading groups on Facebook. Most of them mostly post pretty drawings of pictures of books in all their glorious beauty. Sometimes cats show up in the photos, sometimes dogs, sometimes coffee or tea. (Yes, this seems to be as far as I will interact with strangers, even on social media.)

I often click Like on these and, sometimes, I even share. For instance:

Yeah, that's really what I'm going to write about today. Because you can never have enough books. Not ever.

Right now, on my night table, I have close to thirty books. That's not counting the ones on my bookshelves. And the ones in the dinning room that I haven't put away. Oh, yeah, also, doesn't include my husband's books, which take up quite a few shelves in the basement. This also doesn't include the books I check out of the library.

And you know what? At this very moment, I have at least two other tabs open on my browser that give me access to more books (i.e. buying more books and checking out more books). 

Is this an addiction?

Yes. Probably. Most likely. I'm not sure. I don't really care.

Should I blow my money on alcohol, junk food, or cigarettes? Hmm? Is that what I should do?

See, unlike some addictions (shoes, clothes, cocaine), this one has the potential to make me a better person. 

I can read as much as I want and still function in society. 

In fact, I can read as much as I like without spending another cent. Libraries are wonderful places and I don't know where we would be as a society without them.

You think about that. Right now, we have retail workers that have to deal with so much shit (sometimes, quite literally) and that's with relatively easy access to all kinds of printed media. That's with thousands of years of humans living in settled communities.

Seriously, where would we be without books?

Think about how much time we waste on mindless tasks or about how much money we spend on things that go out of style. I'm totally guilty of both of these. I can't tell you how much clothing I have and I can't account for all the time I've wasted on YouTube watching Buzzfeed videos. Seriously, it's embarrassing.

But! I will never ever feel any kind of embarrassment for the amount of books I own and/or checkout from the library.

Will I ever get through all of them? Of course not. I won't live long enough to read the ones I already have, much less the ones that will come out during my lifetime. (And I do hope I have quite a lot more years ahead of me.)

That doesn't matter. Maybe, if I have children someday, they will inherit all of my books. They will remember me by these books. They will have some insight into who I was and what kind of people I hope they will be. If I have children someday, I hope they can't drive or walk past a library without feeling at least a little bit giddy.

Because, for some of us folks that have little to no athletic prowess or that don't exactly have a desire to go off and sky dive:

And they have given me some of the best highs of my life.

Except wine. Maybe wine. Wine and books=best Friday night ever.

Musings: My (Somewhat) Secret Shame

It started out when I got my eReader for Christmas. A typically story, really. It was just so easy. Just a tap-tap on the green button and it there it was, at no cost whatsoever. And, even better, nobody had to know.

It started my on a path that had no way back: romance novels.

I love reading them. So much so, in fact, I go through them like cookies.

Shown: Figurative representation of how I go through romance novels. Also, of how I eat cookies.

We've all heard these criticism, I'm sure: "I only read nonfiction. Novels are so poorly written nowadays." Or, one of my favorites, "I only read books where I can learn something. Why would you read something just for fun? It's a waste of time." And it only gets worse if you get these folks started on romance novels.

Well, you know what? Nobody should feel ashamed for reading romance or any other genre. Everyone should read what they want to read. Nothing turns off more people to reading than pretentious assholes that act like everyone else is an ignorant peasant if they read a genre said assholes don't respect.

So, to those folks, here's my plebeian response to you:

But I digress.

After I started reading romance novels, I found a whole world out there I had no idea existed. Websites like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books showed me how plenty of smart, educated, and completely well-adjusted women read these books all the time. I didn't think only stupid women read these books. It's just that, back in the day, most of the novels that came out were historical bodice-rippers that had too much of a rapey tone for me to enjoy. And, of course, I judged people who read romance by that misguided preconception.

Sure, some novels out there still have rapey undertones. But so many more of them have some of the strongest female characters in fiction. You can find everything from books where the main characters just hold hands to erotica where anything goes. It took me a bit to find the ones that I truly enjoyed, but find them I did.

During times when I've been under a lot of stress, reading these novels have helped me. I'm one of those people that, more often than not, reads the end of a book early on. I don't really do that with romance novels because I know a happy ending awaits. I don't want the heroine and the hero to have an easy time of it (angst and tortured souls are my romance catnip) but life beats the shit out of you enough on its own. Once in a while, I want to know the story I'm reading ends well.

For a long time, I refused to read romance novel hard copies on mass transit. For incredibly sexist and ignorant reasons, people feel completely free to criticize your reading material and your intellect if you have a romance novel in your hands. I also don't talk about it freely with just anyone. The judgement is real and I just don't want to deal with it.

So, here I am: confessing to anyone that might read this that I enjoy romance novels. I enjoy them frequently and with relish.

I have plenty to say about romance novels and how many people perceive them, but my advice to anyone that likes reading romance, or sci-fi, or fantasy, or whatever the hell else you enjoy, is the following: