The author
The book is written by Graeme Simsion. He was born in 1956 in Auckland, New Zealand. He is an Australian author, screenwriter, playwright and data-modeller. He was an information systems consultant and wrote two books and a few papers about data-modeling. He had a smooth-running consulting business from 1982 until 1999, until he sold it. He co-founded a wine distribution business and In 2006 got a PhD degree from the University of Melbourne for data-modeling. He made several short films and made screenplays. (The Rosie Project was also first a screenplay.) He is married to Anne Buist, a professor of psychiatry, who is also an author. They have two children together. In 2012 he won the Victorian Premier’s unpublished manuscript award for this book, the Rosie Project. They are making a movie about the book, it will be in the theaters in 2019.

Words: 120-160 (148)

Other books written by Graeme Simsion

The Rosie Effect, a sequel to the Rosie Project

Two steps forward, written with Anne Buist

The best of Adam Sharp

Plot
The book is about Don Tillman, a single 39-year old man. He is a really smart professor of genetics. Having a social life finds he difficult, and he has everything in his life planned to the minute. Don would like to have a wife, so he makes a scientific questionnaire called the wife project. Every woman with a habit he does not like, like smoking, fails the test. He thinks it’s the ideal way to find a wife.His best friend and colleague, Gene, who cheats on his wife, thinks that Don can’t find love with the questionnaire. He sends a girl to meet him: Rosie. She is totally unsuitable as a wife for Don; she smokes, isn’t sportive and is a barmaid. But still, Don likes her company. Rosie tells, she does not know who her father is. Her deceased mother said it was a man she spent the night with at her graduation. Don can’t let it go, so he helps her. they secretly attend a reunion of her mother’s graduation class as barmaids. From each glass they collect DNA. Don tests the DNA at the university, but without any positive results. They go to New York to test two men who did not attend the reunion. They become super close, but Don’s awkwardness ends their relationship. Don tries to change and becomes more flexible. He finds out that the ‘stepfather’ of Rosie is her real father. He tells this to Rosie, he proposes, and Rosie accepts. 

Words: 200-250 (250)

Characters

Don Tilman
Don is the main character in the book. You read like you are in his head. He has asperger syndrome and he is intelligent, and he knows he is a little different. He does not really think about feelings, he thinks logical. He gives lessons at the university. Almost everyproblem that he has in his life solves he with making lists and thinking a lot. He never had a really big love in his life, so he does not know that you can’t find love with science. Everything in his life has he planned to the minute, so that he is always on time. He also has a Standardized Meal Planning he makes every week the same food and he mastered making it. The book does not really make clear how he looks like. He does not really care about what he wears. Such as wearing a yellow rain jacket to a fancy restaurant.

Rosie 
Rosie is a quite rude girl. She mostly thinks about her self, or about the identity of her birth father. She has a stepfather, Phil, who she for bad reasons doesn’t like although he made many sacrifices and showed here love. Rosie is the total opposite of Don. She smokes, is practically vegan, chaotic, and is loud. She is extremely intelligent, and besides being a barmaid, she studies psychology. She is surprised she fell in love with Don. She helps Don with becoming more “normal”. But she also has a bad influence on him. She does not wear make-up and has red hair. Her clothes arealmost gothic style.

Gene 
Gene is also a psychology professor, and works at the same university as Don. He is one of his few best friends. He does not take life so seriously, and he cheats a lot on his wife, Claudia, the other friend of Don. Gene wants as a “professor” to sleep with woman from every country from the earth. He even has a world map with pins on it in his office. Later in the book comes out he only takes a drink with the woman and did not even sleep with them.

Claudia
Claudia is the wife of Gene. Sometimes they argue, because ofcourse she doesn’t like that Gene cheats on her. She is also like Gene a psychologist. She helps Don with his troubles in life and his feelings for Rosie. She has trouble with her marriage with Gene and is sometimes angry at him, so she hurts him back by putting chillies in his sandwiches.

Phil
Phil has a gym, and Rosie thinks he is her step-father. But he turns out to be her real father. He loves Rosie very much, and at the end of the book forgives that Rosie was mean to him.

How the events of the story influenced the personality of the main character (C)
In the beginning of the story, Don is a very awkward man who thinks completely logical. For example, he has a Standardized Meal Planning where he makes every week the same meals on the same time. 

In the book you see him changing because of multiple events. You  follow him in his way to get better at dating and be more flexible. He thinks he cannot really feel love, because of his asperger syndrome. 

In the beginning he tries to solve everything by making a list and thinking a lot about it on his own. So for him it is really normal to make a questionnaire, and exclude everyone who has another way of living or have another opinion on something.

The first time he meets Rosie, he learns that he can live life completely different way. An example is when Don was not on his schedule, Rosie changed the time. He learned that he also can solve problems without thinking a lot. But there are also negative changes in his personality in the middle of the book. He drinks a lot more than he used to, because Rosie is a barmaid. Because he wants everything to be perfect, he becomes a pro in making cocktails.

Because he meets Rosie, he looks at the world in a very different way. He watches movies without thinking too much about everything, and he learns how to love someone. In the end of the book he becomes a completely other person. He does not have the Standardized Meal Planning anymore, he dresses differently, he is less introvert, has no problems with hugging Rosie, and he even listens to music.

words: 250-300 (276)

Explanation of the title
The title is The Rosie Project, and you can find this back in the story. In the beginning of the book Don talks about the wife project. Later this changes to the Rosie Project. Because Dons mission is to have Rosie as a wife. The book is also about the father project, but the most important person in the book is Rosie, so the Rosie Project makes more sense.

Themes of the story
Love: Don finds love and you follow him in his way to get Rosie as hiswife.

Changing: Don changes because of Rosie, and he becomes a betterman.

Control: In the beginner of the book, Don has control over everything.He plans his life by the minute. In the end, he changed and lives how he wants.

Setting 1
The story takes place in Australia, Melbourne. Don mentions thiswhen they go to New York, and every bar or restaurant they go to inthe book really exits. For example, Rosie jokes that she wants to goto the really fancy restaurant Le Gavroche. This restaurant reallyexists, just like almost all the other bars and restaurants in the book.

Genre
I think this book is a love/feel good novel. The book mostly goesabout love. And in the end everything is good, so you are happy ifyou are finished with the novel.

Quotes
“‘no flexibility?’ ‘definitely not’. Having succeeded in recovering lost time, I was not about to throw my life into chaos again.” (p.15)

“If you were on your usual schedule, what time would it be now?‘6.38 p.m.’The clock on the oven showed 9.09 p.m. Rosie started adjusting the time. When she was finished, it showed 6.38 p.m.‘you’ve created a new time zone.’ Dinner will be ready at 8.55 p.m. - Rosie time’” (p.62)

“I looked at the woman more carefully as she approached my desk. I did not detect any make-up. Her body shape and skin tine were consistent with health and fitness. She wore a long black t-shirt that was torn at several places and a black belt with metal chains.” (p.46)

“did you pay the bill?’ ‘I just took off.’‘we have to go back.’‘fuck ‘em,’ said Rosie, as we climbed into the Porsche and sped off.What was happening to me?” (p.104)

“‘Oh shit. Oh shit. Claudia put chillies in my sandwich.’” (p.76)

“Question thirty-five: do you eat kidneys? Correct answer is c) occasionally. Testing for food problems. If you ask directly? They say ,"I eat anything" and then you find out they're vegetarian.” (p.30)

“Fault! Asperger’s isn’t a fault. It’s a variant. It’s potentially a major advantage. Asperger’s syndrome is associated with organization, focus, innovative thinking and rational detachment’”(p. 10).

“I know this song!’ Rosie laughed. ‘If you didn’t, that’d be the final proof that you’re from Mars.” (p.95)

“I cook, but now I reserve the meals of the Standardized Meal System for dinner parties.” (p.322)

“‘Could you live with me crying in movies?’Said Rosie. ’of course,’ I said.‘you’re offering to live with me?’Rosie smiled.” (p.318)

“I am able to hug Rosie. This was the issue that caused me the most of fear after she agreed to live with me.” (p.323)

“after two hours, hours, a woman of about thirty-five, estimated BMI, twenty-one.” (p.38)