The Rosie Project

This has been a wildly popular book by Graeme Simsion--you see it in every bookstore right now and it has received lots of positive reviews (e.g., The Guardian,  NPR, The Washington Post). It was a light enjoyable read about an Australian genetics professor, Don Tillman, who  happens to be on the autism spectrum.  Obviously highly functional, he nevertheless is subject to living a well-ordered life with few disruptions and plenty of repetitive routines to cut down on the potential overload to his brain. He can never seem to make it past his first date with women. When he decides that he wants to get married, he initially approaches it in a dispassionate and systematic fashion (The Wife Project), formulating a questionnaire that will screen for unacceptable behaviors, characteristics and attitudes. No smoking, no drinking, must be punctual...well it's a long list of criteria, sure to rule out 99.99% of women in the world. Then, through a manipulation by his co-worker Gene, he encounters Rosie, who is clearly NOT a suitable partner, and decides to help her find her biological father,  at which point his life takes on nearly overwhelming roller coaster intensity. At the same time, he is trying to save the marriage of his best--make that only--friends, Claudia and Gene (psychology professor and Casanova who is trying to bed a woman from every country in the world). This is an entertaining book, but the conclusion is foregone and somewhat unbelievable. I share the concerns voiced by this review in The Telegraph, and the character inconsistencies noted in this review. I suggest that anyone who wants a more realistic picture of adult Asperger's syndrome read Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark, which, although it has elements of science fiction, is based on her own experiences living with an Asperger's son. Nevertheless, The Rosie Project is on stage and soon to be made into a movie, so those who loved it will have more opportunities to partake.
Post Script: Finally, after a recent book group meeting where we discussed this boo, I figured out what irritated me so much about the Rosie Project. One of the group members shared her experience raising a child who has Asperger's, and this crystallized for me how I did not like the somewhat light and flippant way that Asperger's was handled in the book. I think it is easy to get the impression that "oh, this is an inconvenience that I have to make all these accommodations in my life (limit stimuli, focus on routine, etc.) to just get by."  My impression that this is what people take away from the book was reinforced by reading reviews and by reading the summary of the upcoming movie, i.e., brilliant guy who just has not been able to get a 2nd date. AAGGGHHH  It so clearly is not a comic matter to raise a child or live as an individual with Asperger's or any level of autism, and I resent the fact that Simsion has, in my view, trivialized the reality of this. If Don had been a more realistic and consistent character, introducing this topic with humor would certainly have been a way to make people aware of the difficulties faced by this population. As it stands, he is a caricature, and therefore has done a disservice to general understanding. Suggesting that "love can conquer all" is about as realistic as attributing this neurological disorder to bad parenting, as was done in the not too distant past.