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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
Still enjoyable, but pretty disappointing after I loved the first one so much.
I really wanted to like it because I so loved The Rosie Project, but by the time I was halfway through I could not stand literally any of the characters. In the first book they had been quirky but still relatable and funny, but in this book the character interactions were awkward and not funny at all. The development and actions of the characters was also not consistent with the first book IMO.
I also found the portrayal of the women throughout the book to be awful - the stereotypical unreasonable pregnant women, evil social worker, and the general lack of effort in developing the women (even Rosie) as characters to the same level as the men. Obviously the main character/narrator is a man, but that’s not an excuse to neglect the female characters.
I was ready to quit halfway through but with the advice of my mother (who’s read the whole trilogy), I skipped to the last couple of chapters to get the gist so that I could move on to The Rosie Result, which I’ve been told is much better. I sure hope so.
I also found the portrayal of the women throughout the book to be awful - the stereotypical unreasonable pregnant women, evil social worker, and the general lack of effort in developing the women (even Rosie) as characters to the same level as the men. Obviously the main character/narrator is a man, but that’s not an excuse to neglect the female characters.
I was ready to quit halfway through but with the advice of my mother (who’s read the whole trilogy), I skipped to the last couple of chapters to get the gist so that I could move on to The Rosie Result, which I’ve been told is much better. I sure hope so.
I really liked the interaction between Don and Rosie in the first book. There was too little of that in this book. I didn't enjoy it very much and didn't care enough to to finish it.
Not as good as the first. Still beware of the language.
Please note this review will have spoilers for book one. If you haven't read book one you may want to skip over this review.
I honestly don't know what to say about this book that i haven't already said in my updates.
I felt like I was reading about totally different characters based on events in book one. We had way too many plot lines. The pace was awful. I blame that on the zig-zag of the plot lines. One thing that Mr. Simison did well in the last book was he really got into great detail about Australia. In this book, not so much. And the ending made me laugh. Not in a good way.
The overall plot to The Rosie Effect is that Don and Rosie married only a short time since the end of The Rosie Project are now expecting their first child together. There are also side plots dealing with Don having to clean up a mess he makes which involves him in therapy, hidden identities, a project at the school he is working at, trying to help his friend Dave, trying to help Gene, etc. If this book had just focused on the pregnancy that would have been enough. There was too much going on and most of the plot lines magically resolved themselves due to Don.
Besides the plot lines that ebbed and flowed throughout the book, we have the characters written inconsistently from where they were in the last book.
Case in point. Don was hilarious in the last book. A 40ish man who either has Asperger's or a form of autism, he decided to start The Wife Project (The Rosie Project) and ended up meeting Rosie and in turn started The Father Project in order to help Rosie find her biological father. There were lots of laugh out moments with Don and his comments that he made while talking to people, having his inner dialogue, and his confusion over romantic movies, and his feelings for Rosie. Somehow that is all erased in this sequel since we have Don acting so irrational and just plain dumb during parts of this book it was surreal.
For example, Don moves himself and Rosie out of one apartment in one morning into another place without discussing this with Rosie. The same Don who has to have a schedule for how to do things, on the different ways he knows he can cause Rosie to start to feel amorous enough to make love (they all involve Gregory Peck) decides to move himself into a basement apartment which smells of beer because it is an apartment that houses beer for a rock star that lives above.
Surprisingly Rosie takes this all in stride (I would not have), but flips out when she finds out that Don has told Gene (from the last book) that he could come and live with them in New York for a while (not a spoiler, is in the book summary) after Gene has left Claudia.
Now this is after Rosie has said flat out that she doesn't want Gene to live with them, that she can't stand him, and also they are expecting a baby so they need to actually focus on that. Don still invites Gene because he decides that's what best.
And this is pretty much the entire book. Don does a lot of things, keeps them secret or sometimes not from Rosie, and acts like Batman going around and solving other people's problems but pretty much ignoring the fact he and his wife are coming apart at the seams.
And though I cut Rosie some slack initially (the Gene thing would have made me murder Don) she started behaving so badly that I was done with her as well. She pretty much pushes Don out of being involved at all with her pregnancy and I think I was at 50 percent where I seriously said to myself did I want to finish this book and have it ruin The Rosie Project for me. Rosie was a bit hard to take towards the end of the last book, but I liked her character. She got Don a lot and she said outrageous things but seemed to get him and was in love with him. Apparently the Rosie from the last book switched bodies with another person because now she is nasty and horrible to Don due to the very things she liked about him in the first book.
And we have Gene. Gene who was a philandering piece of crap in the last book who redeemed himself is now in New York due to him returning to form. We get to read more of his horrible wisdom to Don and other's about women, babies, marriage. The only times Gene was not being annoying was when he was sticking up for Don though which was the only time I liked this character. And the way that Mr. Simison decided to just explain Gene's actions made me roll my eyes. I think he thought this would cause readers to like Gene or sympathize with him. Instead I was like who does something like this outside of a bad sitcom?
There are some other characters that I just don't even want to go into but will make an exception for the world's worst social worker who doesn't know Don but acts as if people with Asperger's or autism cannot be trusted to be married or to have children. I hated this character a lot.
And the pace. Wow. The pace dragged and dragged. I think it was because of the plot lines. I could not get a good feel for this book at all. The writing I have to say in a lot of places was just repetitive. I am sure that's because of how Don the character speaks and thinks, but I was tired of him listing out reasons why Rosie or someone could be acting a certain way. Or him explaining how to make drinks, food, wine, etc. It was like reading an instruction manual.
The ending when it came just made me cringe inside. It was so cliche that I was seriously embarrassed. Based on this being called Don Tillman #2 I have a bad feeling a third book is in the works. I plan on leaving that book alone and hoping over time I can forget this book in order to be able to read The Rosie Effect again in the future without this book tainting it.
I honestly don't know what to say about this book that i haven't already said in my updates.
I felt like I was reading about totally different characters based on events in book one. We had way too many plot lines. The pace was awful. I blame that on the zig-zag of the plot lines. One thing that Mr. Simison did well in the last book was he really got into great detail about Australia. In this book, not so much. And the ending made me laugh. Not in a good way.
The overall plot to The Rosie Effect is that Don and Rosie married only a short time since the end of The Rosie Project are now expecting their first child together. There are also side plots dealing with Don having to clean up a mess he makes which involves him in therapy, hidden identities, a project at the school he is working at, trying to help his friend Dave, trying to help Gene, etc. If this book had just focused on the pregnancy that would have been enough. There was too much going on and most of the plot lines magically resolved themselves due to Don.
Besides the plot lines that ebbed and flowed throughout the book, we have the characters written inconsistently from where they were in the last book.
Case in point. Don was hilarious in the last book. A 40ish man who either has Asperger's or a form of autism, he decided to start The Wife Project (The Rosie Project) and ended up meeting Rosie and in turn started The Father Project in order to help Rosie find her biological father. There were lots of laugh out moments with Don and his comments that he made while talking to people, having his inner dialogue, and his confusion over romantic movies, and his feelings for Rosie. Somehow that is all erased in this sequel since we have Don acting so irrational and just plain dumb during parts of this book it was surreal.
For example, Don moves himself and Rosie out of one apartment in one morning into another place without discussing this with Rosie. The same Don who has to have a schedule for how to do things, on the different ways he knows he can cause Rosie to start to feel amorous enough to make love (they all involve Gregory Peck) decides to move himself into a basement apartment which smells of beer because it is an apartment that houses beer for a rock star that lives above.
Surprisingly Rosie takes this all in stride (I would not have), but flips out when she finds out that Don has told Gene (from the last book) that he could come and live with them in New York for a while (not a spoiler, is in the book summary) after Gene has left Claudia.
Now this is after Rosie has said flat out that she doesn't want Gene to live with them, that she can't stand him, and also they are expecting a baby so they need to actually focus on that. Don still invites Gene because he decides that's what best.
And this is pretty much the entire book. Don does a lot of things, keeps them secret or sometimes not from Rosie, and acts like Batman going around and solving other people's problems but pretty much ignoring the fact he and his wife are coming apart at the seams.
And though I cut Rosie some slack initially (the Gene thing would have made me murder Don) she started behaving so badly that I was done with her as well. She pretty much pushes Don out of being involved at all with her pregnancy and I think I was at 50 percent where I seriously said to myself did I want to finish this book and have it ruin The Rosie Project for me. Rosie was a bit hard to take towards the end of the last book, but I liked her character. She got Don a lot and she said outrageous things but seemed to get him and was in love with him. Apparently the Rosie from the last book switched bodies with another person because now she is nasty and horrible to Don due to the very things she liked about him in the first book.
And we have Gene. Gene who was a philandering piece of crap in the last book who redeemed himself is now in New York due to him returning to form. We get to read more of his horrible wisdom to Don and other's about women, babies, marriage. The only times Gene was not being annoying was when he was sticking up for Don though which was the only time I liked this character. And the way that Mr. Simison decided to just explain Gene's actions made me roll my eyes. I think he thought this would cause readers to like Gene or sympathize with him. Instead I was like who does something like this outside of a bad sitcom?
There are some other characters that I just don't even want to go into but will make an exception for the world's worst social worker who doesn't know Don but acts as if people with Asperger's or autism cannot be trusted to be married or to have children. I hated this character a lot.
And the pace. Wow. The pace dragged and dragged. I think it was because of the plot lines. I could not get a good feel for this book at all. The writing I have to say in a lot of places was just repetitive. I am sure that's because of how Don the character speaks and thinks, but I was tired of him listing out reasons why Rosie or someone could be acting a certain way. Or him explaining how to make drinks, food, wine, etc. It was like reading an instruction manual.
The ending when it came just made me cringe inside. It was so cliche that I was seriously embarrassed. Based on this being called Don Tillman #2 I have a bad feeling a third book is in the works. I plan on leaving that book alone and hoping over time I can forget this book in order to be able to read The Rosie Effect again in the future without this book tainting it.
Another great installment of this series- I seriously LOVE Don Tillman.
Aww, I loved this one as much as the first one.
It was pretty slow going for me. I liked the first book much better.
The Rosie Project was charming. This book just made me feel sad on Don's behalf for the majority of the story.