Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

A Review by Maggie:

Don Tillman is a genetics specialist, highly intelligent able to memorize anything in a very limited time.  He is very literal---sort of an Amelia Bedelia type.  He does have personality issues and is on the Asperger’s spectrum scale and is riddled with OCD.  When he decides he needs a wife he creates a 16 page questionnaire so he can weed out wrong types---ie vegans, smokers disorganized people and women that are habitually late.  He has the results sent to his only friend Gene so he can weed them.  He gets few responses but when Rosie arrives in his office he presumes she is a result of the survey.  However, she meets none of the criteria—she smokes , is always late and worst she is an almost vegan (only eating sustainable fish).  Rosie is meeting with don for another reason his genetics expertise,  She wants to find her biological father---as the ones she call Dad is a personal trainer and certainly not the type of man her brilliant  deceased mother would choose to mate with----She has Don checking all her mother’s past beaus.  She is sure she will find DNA that matches hers.  Hilarity ensues as the search for the match takes them to two continents.

In the meantime the only respondent to Don’s questionnaire is a champion ball room dancer---she wants only to meet fellow dancing experts.  No problem Don believes that he can learn anything from reading about it and practicing----he borrows a skeleton from the anatomy lab to learn how to dance----it also comes in handy at a later date when he things he might have a sexual encounter.  Simison skills are such that this is funny not prurient.  He is an imaginative writer and easily provokes laughter in the reader.  Things get wound up to the reader’s satisfaction.


If anyone has read this book tell me why the author keeps referring to his dead sister that dies from a medical mishap.  

Friday, April 18, 2014

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty



I enjoyed The Husband’s Secret very much.  Moriarty tells a good story and keeps you turning pages –compulsively.  She creates three women characters, Cecilia Fitzpatrick, Tess Curtis and Rachel Crowley and fleshes each of them out with compelling back stories.  The story starts with Cecilia (an annoyingly perfect person) discovering a  sealed letter addressed to her from her husband with the ominous TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH . John Paul is out of the country when Cecilia finds the letter and he implores her to not open it.  However,  his unexpected early return makes Cecilia very suspicious and she loses the battle with herself and reads the letter.   John  Paul’s  secret is life changing . Tess’s husband has a secret as well he has been having an affair with her favorite cousin.  Rachel Crowley is searching for the person who killed her daughter in a hit and run twenty years ago.  Moriarty takes us through these women’s lives and loves and suffering and weaves them all together in a most believable way.  I enjoyed this book so much I immediately checked out The Hypnotist’s Love Story I enjoyed it even more than Husband.  Try Liane Moriarty she has a realistic view on modern marriage and relationships and tells a good story in a compelling manner---she is not just ‘chick lit’