YAck Attack: The Rose Project by Graeme Simsion

YAck: January 2014
Published: October 1, 2013
Simon & Schuster

Add it: Goodreads

From Goodreads:

An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

Maureen: [She's new this month! Say hi!] So, um, I have read The Rosie Project and I have The Dream Thieves back on hand to refer to. How exactly will we YAck?

Chachic: Are we discussing both for this month? I've read The Dream Thieves but haven't started on The Rosie Project. We usually just create a thread here on Facebook to talk about the books.

Melissa: We're discussing either. Or both. I think I might dig up the Dream Thieves thread Sya and I started way back when.

But this is a fine place to start Rosie Project. Which I read, and liked well enough, but didn't LOVE.

What did you think, Maureen?

Maureen: My overall impression was: cute. Funny, sweet, cute, and somewhat fluffy. It ramped up for me, some of which was the learning curve getting used to Don and his worldview. I liked his arc and how he came to the conclusion that it was possible for him to love someone. I was glad Rosie wasn't a MPDG, but felt like her arc was less fleshed out, particularly when we realized how much she was at fault in her relationship with her stepfather, and that never got resolved to my satisfaction. I predicted the secret of her bio-dad from about the middle of the book. So, not the best ever, but it made me happy overall.

Angie: Same, Melissa. Liked well enough. Never really crossed over into impressive for me. I kept waiting for it to, especially given some of the rather rabidly glowing reviews that came out early on. But like Maureen says, Rosie was never fleshed out enough for me for that.
January 10 at 2:05pm · Like

Melissa:The only time I thought: WTH was the brief moment when I thought Gene might be her bio-father. That kind of made me pissed. Actually, Gene, overall, I could do without. He was a dick. I kind of want Sya to weigh in on the AS side of this, because I thought Simison did okay. Unlike Sheldon on BBT (who I kept comparing to Don), I never thought we were invited to laugh AT Don. But rather at the situations he found himself in.

Sya: I'm still waiting for my library copy but it sounds positive.

Chachic  I finished reading this the other day and Don really reminded me of Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. I found myself smiling in some scenes and even laughing out loud at some of them. It was a pretty quick read for me, I had fun getting to know Don. While I can see Maureen and Angie's point about Rosie's character not being fully developed, it didn't really bother me when I was reading it. But yeah, more like than love for this. I'd recommend it to someone who would want to read something light and funny but isn't into contemporary romance.

Oh and Melissa, I agree about Gene. I didn't like him at all and couldn't see why Claudia put up with him. For a while there, I thought Claudia had no idea that Gene slept around. I liked Don's friendship with Daphne, I thought that was really sweet.

We obviously didn't have much to say about this one. Primarily because we'd much rather talk about the boys in The Dream Thief (who can blame us)? And then we got sidetracked into Divergent territory (posts coming).  But it wasn't a bad read, overall.