Don Tillman

39 years old

Professor (at the Melbourne university)

Is an amazing cook

Single

Not many friends (socially awkward)

Autistic (asperger)

Is looking for a wife but has high standards

The Wife Project

Detailed questionnaire that filters out candidates

Rosie

Is absolutely not Don’s type

Fails on every score on Don’s questionnaire

Chaotic

Smokes

Alcoholic

Is actually just hurt by her past

Only thing she wants is to find her biological father (The Father Project) (Don dóes help her with that)

Eventually her chaotism is what attracts Don to her

Gene

Don’s best friend and collegue (at the university)

Open relationship with Claudia (a friend of Don as well)

Wants to sleep with a woman from every country in the world

Is not a socializer

Selfish person

Doesn’t pay attention to his family

Claudia

Gene’s wife

Always pays attention to Don

Wants to help Don become happy and gives him advise

But hides her own emotions because of it

Tries to forget about her problems and wants to be happy

First sentence

‘’I may have found a solution to the Wife Problem.’’

Theme

Unreachable love: romance, but not typical or cliche romance. At the first instance, Don doesn’t want to fall in love, he just wants to breed, but it happens by itself.

*The search for Rosie’s father is the main event in the story.

Title

In fact the project was about ‘The Wife Project’, but unconsciously it started evolving around Rosie, even though it was never a project meant for her. 

Locations

Mainly in Australia, Melbourne. (Bars, public places…)

Also: in New York.

Time

Modern time

Last sentence

‘’Had it not been fort his unscheduled series of events, her daughter and I would not have fallen in love. And I would still be eating lobster every Tuesday night. Incredible.’’

Summary

Don Tillman gets the idea to start The Wife Project. By means of a very specific questionnaire he wants to find his ideal wife to share his life with. After a few failed dates, he meets Rosie, a bar tender, befriended with his best friend Gene. She doesn’t match with his requirements at all. She’s  a vegetarian, a smoker and much more that he doesn’t like. Weirdly enough things do work out between them en Don deicdes to help her find her biological father (The Father Project). They are going undercover to the reunion of her mothers exam class. FYI: Rosie’s mother got pregnant at the graduation party.

Don keeps getting more into Rosie, but he also suspects that she wants to be more than friends (even though she’s not very fit for him). It seems that she’s a collegue of Gene and works as a bartender as well. Don and Rosie get into a fight and a new candidate, Bianca, comes into Don’s life. She scores perfectly. He takes her to a party, but Rosie is there as well. He turns to Rosie again. His feelings for her have strengthened.

He continues to help her with The Father Project by means of DNA tests and finds out that there are two possible fathers. They travel to New York toghether to find out which one it is. They get closer and closer.

Once they are back home, Don finds out that Gene was at his mom’s graduation party and that he reminds her. Don takes some of his DNA (in secret) and wants to take a test but gets caught. He realises that his way of acting has changed a lot since he has met Rosie, he wants to win her back.

Rosie turns him down, because he is not capable of real love for her and his brain doesn’t function like it should, according to her. In the end Rosie does accept his request and the two move to New York. Rosie finishes her study over there and Don gets a new job at a university as well.

They find out Phil (Rosie’s stepfather) is actually Rosie’s biological father. Rosie’s mother thought it could’ve never been him because of the deviant eye colour, but Don knew the eye colour is not necessarily determined by the parents of one.