I felt this was rushed and left unsatisfied the whole time. Of course, there are moments of hilarity, and I still enjoy the perspective of Don’s mind and how real it is with how he thinks. But the story doesn’t grip me anymore, and I’m not invested in discovering what happens in the third book. ( )

I really enjoyed this. Loved the old and the new characters and all the good feels this book gave me.

( )

Very good, but much the same ( )

After the global success of The Rosie Project nothing was surer than that Graeme Simsion’s sequel would be a runaway best-seller, and so it is.

The first book was one my favourite reads in 2013, so I was quick to get hold of The Rosie Effect. In this sequel, Don and Rosie are married and living in the USA; Don works at Columbia University, where Rosie is also studying. The scene is set when Rosie announces to Don that she is pregnant. Soon after, Don’s philandering friend Gene shows up, having been kicked out by his wife. Can Don handle the pressures of impending fatherhood, whilst also solving the Gene Problem?

The Rosie Project was a captivating and original rom-com, with a unique narrative voice in Don, seemingly a highly-functional Asperger’s sufferer. Having married off his main characters, Simsion has to follow another route this time, and he chooses to make Don the centre of a farce surrounding his fears about his readiness to be a father. As Don tries to educate himself and help Rosie, he just sinks further into a mass of confusion. This is a road that has been travelled many times before however, and limited laughs can be milked from such an unoriginal idea. Don is as awkward as ever, but Rosie is pretty much reduced to a cypher compared to her presence in the first book. The reader is very much with Don in this one, sometimes at Rosie’s expense, and you may find yourself getting angry at his treatment at the hands of others.

The ending is just a bit pat for my tastes, but I suppose that’s a feature of the genre. Having invented a couple of great characters in his first novel, I can’t help but feel that Simsion has failed to let them shine as well this time. ( )

As often happens the sequel to an original tends to be somewhat of a disappointment and this is how I felt about this book. Having read "The Rosie Project", the humor was appreciated along with the various eccentricities of Don Tillman, the central character. In this story we see he hasn't changed much in spite of being married to Rosie and the additional characters added while interesting don't add that much to the equation. The end of the story is predictable so I doubt they'll be a third volume though one never knows. ( )