3 Stars
Well, rats. Maybe my expectations were just too high after falling head over heels in love with The Rosie Project last year. Maybe there wasn’t enough magic left to make a worthy sequel. Whatever the case, I’m bummed I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would.
WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT YET READ THE ROSIE PROJECT AND INTEND TO DO SO, BACK AWAY FROM THIS REVIEW IMMEDIATELY. THERE IS ZERO WAY TO AVOID SPOILING THE FIRST BOOK AND STILL BE ABLE TO WRITE ABOUT THE SECOND.
Still here? Okay, here we go …
This is the continuation of Sheldon Cooper’s Don Tillman’s story. Now 41, he and Rosie have been married for 10 months (and 10 days, if you want to be technical – which we know Don always wants to be technical). The couple are residing in The Big Apple where Don is an assistant professor at Columbia and Rosie is finishing up her Ph.D. Rosie is about to inform Don that they have a little “something to celebrate.”
And there’s where our problem begins. While Don remains Don and is completely over-the-top adorkable, getting himself into laugh-out-loudable (new word – add it to the dictionary, Merriam-Webster) pickle after pickle due to his inability to interact successfully with most other humans, Rosie loses her charm and basically becomes a straight-up bitch (I’m sure there are more refined phrases I could use to describe Rosie, but she peeved me off, so I’m not going to). It was impossible for me to read this as just “entertainment” when I was so angry with the main character and none of Don’s antics were enough to keep my spirits up once Rosie entered a scene. That’s not to say Don was without faults . . . Don is FULL of faults. That’s kind of the whole point ; )
WARNING #2: THE FOLLOWING IS REALLY A SPOILER WHICH MIGHT RUIN THIS BOOK FOR EVERYONE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Still with me????
Okay.
Rosie commits the ULTIMATE sin of any woman – let alone a married one. She decides (even though she chose someone like Don for a partner and therefore supposedly accepted him as-is, including all of his quirks) that it is “her body, her choice,” stops taking birth control without consulting Don, gets knocked up (even though she’s finishing up a Ph.D. program and then immediately plans on turning around and beginning medical school), has ZERO plans on who will care for the baby/how they will pay for the baby, and then gets mad at Don for not jumping for joy about the situation. It made my heart hurt. It made me think that the author really dislikes women as he puts forth this surprise baby scenario as something the “average” wife does on the regular. It ruined the magic for me and made me soooooo sad.
I’ve sat on this review for a few days now because my head told me to give it a low rating, but my love for Don told me to keep it high. I’m settling for a 3, but not with a completely clear conscience. If I thought about it any longer it could easily become a 2 (or a 4 – I have some serious multiple-personality disorder on this one). I won’t be throwing in the towel on Graeme Simsion just yet, but I sure wish he would have given me more “Shamy” like I had hoped for . . . .
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you, NetGalley!!!
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