Review: The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first impression upon finishing The Rosie Project was that this book was amazing. I loved the main character's voice and personality. This book was very enjoyable to read in the moment, however after completion and upon further contemplation I have some qualms. I had these feelings while I was reading as well, however they were buried deeper inside me, masked by the enjoyment the overall experience was giving me.

I liked Don's character a lot, and thought he was very funny. Lots of laughing out loud. Because of this, I didn't like how at the end (view spoiler)[he changed for Rosie. I didn't think anything he changed for her (his verbature, his meal plan, his schedule, etc.) was necessary. All those things were part of his charm and part of what made him a highly efficient person. He literally made himself worse/dumbed himself down for Rosie, which I didn't like at all. To quote Mysterio from the recent movie Spiderman: Far From Home: "Never apologize for being the smartest person in the room." Don not only apologized—but made himself dumber. (hide spoiler)] This is my biggest criticism of the book, coupled with:

Rosie is not even that great. (view spoiler)[Don literally only likes her because she's super hot. She has so many "hard no's" (smoking, drinking, always late, etc.) yet Don likes her anyway. The explanation is that you know you really love someone when you like them despite their flaws. That doesn’t make sense because Rosie's flaws were right upfront from the get-go and Don still associated himself with her and there's no way he was already in love with her. It was just his biological response to her hotness. And so the rest of the book is just him falling more and more in love with her hotness, basically. Men are weird. Literally all you have to do is be hot and all your personality flaws don't matter (is what both this book and my own experience tell me). (hide spoiler)] Because of this I never really liked Rosie, and didn’t condone Don’s decisions to keep associating with her.

To top it off: I have had this book on my shelves for years, but have only now decided to pick it up in order to read Asperger's representation. The book never really out right said Don has Asperger's so that didn't really pan out.

Initially, this was an easy 5-star rating for me. However the changes at the end of the book greatly soiled the main thing I liked in the first place: Don’s character. Despite that, the overall reading experience was too good for me to rate The Rosie Project anything less than four stars.

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