THE ROSIE EFFECT is the sequel to Graeme Simsion’s beloved New York Times bestseller THE ROSIE PROJECT. Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman have returned but come stateside to Manhattan, where they have set up a highly regimented life with some very manageable conclusions. However, all that regimentation goes to hell when Rosie unexpectedly announces that she’s pregnant. Don, ever the non-adventurer, tries to keep up with the expectations of being a dad while weathering other bumpy hills in the road towards domestic bliss.

At the same time that Rosie is dealing with her bodily changes, Don puts himself on a Don-like myopic road to what he thinks will help him best deal with fatherhood. Soon, however, he is in trouble with the law. And before they know it, the couple has a new human to deal with: Gene, Don’s best friend, who has left his wife and lost his job, moves in with them. This threesome does not keep life moving to Don’s very particular beat.

"THE ROSIE EFFECT is an entertaining look at a man who wants to make everything perfect and, in doing so, makes everything much less than that.... The humor is gentle, like a nice sitcom after a hard day’s work."

Although Rosie is the real priority here, Don has a series of other intense job duties to perform. Besides pregnancy research, he is working as a marriage counselor for Gene and Claudia, fixing the challenged industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half of their no-cost apartment, maintaining a business for Dave the Baseball Fan, and keeping a social worker from unraveling all the good he is trying to do for himself. As a result, Rosie and her issues do get lost in the shuffle, and Don finds himself at the brink of a divorce before the couple can welcome their child and move into a new phase of their lfe.

THE ROSIE PROJECT was Simsion’s first novel and centered on Don’s highly motivated and controlled efforts to locate the woman of his dreams. When he finds Rosie, he knows that his life is going to change, but he can only look at the new territory through his super-scientist glasses --- everything can still be controlled and manipulated, he thinks. Of course he was wrong, but the wrong turned out so right. Will it this time, too?

Like Rain Man, Don has many challenges in life, but intelligence is not one. He uses his big brain to create situations that he thinks exhibit the kind of exceptional forethought for which he is known, but instead he ends up making a lot of bumbling craziness in his wake. THE ROSIE EFFECT is an entertaining look at a man who wants to make everything perfect and, in doing so, makes everything much less than that. I do think that the very important character of Rosie gets a bit lost in the course of Don’s lunacy. I suppose that works well in the long run since Don’s losing sight of the most important person in his life is the most important problem he has to solve in the book. But it takes some of the fun out of the camaraderie, since Rosie is such a nice contrast to Don’s buttoned-up character.

THE ROSIE EFFECT will be popular with any readers for whom relationships, babies, and the myriad of nutty and life-changing events in adult life have an effect. They will fall comfortably under its spell. The humor is gentle, like a nice sitcom after a hard day’s work. I can’t wait to see what happens after the baby comes, but I bet Simsion is working on that right now.