B-
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Literary Fiction, Romance
I had so many mixed feelings about The Rosie Effect that I decided to use this review using Don’s favorite tool, a spreadsheet. Although, technically, it’s more of a pro/con table. The Rosie Effect is a sequel to The Rosie Project, a book that was so beloved by the Bitches that it was our book club pick in October 2013. Don is a professor who is on the autism spectrum and who, throughout the course of The Rosie Project, learns to compromise and negotiate with Rosie so that he can have a romantic companion without changing everything about himself. One of the joys of the first book is that although he does have to make many changes for Rosie, she never expects or wants him to change his essential nature. It’s about compromise, not erasure.
In The Rosie Effect, Don and Rosie are married, and Rosie is pregnant. Don and Rosie react to the pregnancy very differently. Rosie perceives Don as being uninterested in being a father and the couple grow farther and farther apart as Don’s life becomes more and more complicated. As in the first book, Don is the narrator, and although there was much about the book that I enjoyed and while I was certainly emotionally invested, I was also pretty frustrated.
One of my frustrations was that with all the discussion about spreadsheets in the book, we never get to see one. Lucky you – you get to see mine:
| Pros | Cons |
| The book is very funny. Don’s thought processes and reactions to the world around him continue to both amuse (“I have to tell her I love her more than once?”) and edify. I laughed out loud frequently. | The book is sometimes funny in the way a sitcom is funny – with easily preventable misunderstandings leading to predicable complications. |
| The book is emotionally involving. I was very anxious to find out “what happens next.” | Because the stakes are so much higher, I found much of the book to be anxiety provoking instead of entertaining. In the first book, we have to worry about whether or not Don will find love. But in this book, there’s a marriage in peril. For me, personally, the idea that a couple might divorce because of misunderstandings is much more upsetting than the idea that a new romance might not work out. Additionally, there’s the idea that Don might never get to be a father even though, although he admits to not being emotionally invested in the baby as a person (it’s still too abstract for him to bond with) he’s clearly invested in the idea of being a capable parent. |
| The book shines a light on some of the prejudices people have against people on the autism spectrum and the challenges they encounter. | Again, this was valuable reading, but also stressful reading. There’s a dinner party at which Don is subjected to so much abuse that I gasped in horror, and the scene in which Don is grabbed by a cop and reacts defensively might have been intended as funny, but was actually completely terrifying. |
| Characters have understandable motivations for their actions. | In the case of Rosie and Lydia, a social worker, their motivations are revealed late in the story, or are explained to Don by other male characters, which means that they spend most of the book seeming hopelessly irrational. |
| I adored Don’s group of guy friends and how Don solved all their problems. | In this book, women are either sidelined (Claudia barely appears even though her philandering husband is a main character) or they act in ways that appear villainous. Even when their actions are explained, their actions are still bad, based on prejudice and emotional baggage. With one exception, the moral of this book seems to be that “Women be crazy.” Also, the guy friends have problems that are resolved in a pat manner or allowed to disappear. |
| Rosie’s fears are understandable, as is her irritation at her body being policed (Don tries to be involved by planning her meals and exercise schedule). | Rosie behaves in ways that may be understandable, but that are completely out of character compared to her behavior in the first book. She’s unable to work with Don on helping him see how he can support her in concrete terms. The Rosie we met in The Rosie Project would not assume that Don would come to an appointment – she’d tell him. She would not have gone off her birth control without specifically, explicitly, discussing it with Don. She would not isolate herself and limit discussion to “you wouldn’t understand.” She would talk to Don in terms he could understand, and she would work out arrangements with him that met both their needs. The Rosie in The Rosie Effect is a terrible communicator (with everyone), has expectations about Don that she knows from past experience he can’t possibly meet. If you haven’t read The Rosie Project, you will spend The Rosie Effect wondering why on earth Don wants to stay with Rosie, who appears to be completely unsuited to him, even though they were perfectly suited in the last book. |
| The character development and twists involving Lydia are plausible and interesting. | The evil social worker trope is one of my least favorite tropes so until the reveal about her motives I was writhing in agony every time Lydia showed up. |
| Conclusion: | |
| Yes, I liked the book… | ..but it was more frustrating and less satisfying than The Rosie Project. |
Some of this book was incredibly sweet. Some was icky (the marginalization of Rosie, in particular. Some was sad (Don’s quick acceptance that he can’t be a father, despite evidence to the contrary). Some was funny, and all was engrossing. It’s a book I have to think about for a while, which is always a good thing. For now, I’m giving it a B-.
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I was disappointed in this sequel because of how much I liked the first book, which I thought both amusingly and realistically portrayed Don’s difficulties and the gradual relationship between him and Rosie. I completely agree with you that in this second book, Rosie exhibits none of the sensitivity to or coping mechanisms around Don’s autism and behaves irrationally compared to both her personality in the first book and her relationship with him in this sequel. I think that both of them would be aware of the extra work needed to maintain a relationship given their differences so things like moving apartments without warning, getting pregnant, etc. do not fit the characters as established in the first book (or really any good relationship even between two people on the more healthy end of the spectrum!)
I’d add another item in the negative column: While there were some slapstick-like scenes in the first book (like the cocktail bar and the faculty party) they were somewhat reality-based and grew out of the characters and their situations. In this book, many of those types of sequences seemed to me to either came out of nowhere or happened because the author deliberately established unrealistic characters solely in order to create such scenes. (A rock star? Really? And an unbelievably obtuse and unobservant one to boot?)
You’re a more generous marker than me, Sarah. I’d give it a C-. But I do like your review spreadsheet 🙂
I loved Don’s voice in this book – he’s still very much Don. And I really liked the police officer at the station who had a son like Don and was so understanding and dealt with Don so well. That was lovely to see, and one of my favourite parts of the book.
But I agree with you that a lot of the “issues” were predictable and could have been easily prevented. I felt most of the conflict was really contrived and would have all been resolved so easily if they had just TALKED for five seconds.
I missed Rosie – despite the book being named after her, she’s barely a part of the book. And one thing I liked about the first book was the interaction between her and Don, and there’s almost none in the second book. Mostly when they do interact they’re fighting, which is not fun to read. I agree with you that she really didn’t seem to understand him or make allowances for him, despite them having been married for a year.
I absolutely HATED that Rosie chose to get pregnant without telling Don; that’s an awful thing to do. She did at least tell Don she’d done it after she was pregnant, early on and without him having to find out and confront her about it, but I just don’t like the deception and the fact that she made that kind of decision without consulting him. It’s a marriage, you’re supposed to make decisions together about things that affect you both.
I didn’t like Gene being in this book. I didn’t like him much in the first book, so I was glad that he wasn’t in New York, and was then very disappointed that he showed up again.
I loved the first book, but I’m not sure I’ll read this one after the reviews I’ve read. Sounds like there are a lot of things I’d have issues with. But I might get around to it eventually.
I’m looking forward to reading this book. My husband is much like Don and I’m a little like Rosie (although we’re neither as extreme as the characters) so I really enjoyed the first book. There were things that Don did that helped me understand my husband. And, places where I knew exactly how Don’s friends felt. I find the spreadsheets an interesting twist so I’m looking forward to how that will play out in the story. When I was in labor for our first child, my husband kept a spreadsheet of contractions — timing and duration. I think he still has it.
I just received the Rosie Project for Christmas (I’m the last person in the world to read it, obviously). Enjoying it immensely and really curious about exactly how attractive the gym-going Don must be since every woman he’s met so far has wanted him, despite the survey. I’m not far into it yet.
Both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law had read Rosie Project and didn’t realize it was sort of a romance. (They’re not romance readers). Ohhhh, they said when I said it was popular with romance readers … “I guess it has some romance in it, yes, maybe.”
Isn’t it funny how if you’re predisposed to not see romance and to not read romance and even to think rather less of romance, you can read Rosie Project, Austen everything, etc and not notice The Romance Part?
(Sort of like all those people who read FSG and don’t think they read romance …)
Specifically with Rosie Project (b/c I obviously am not at Rosie Effect)- do you think if the author had a woman’s name, it would have been shelved as and perceived more as romance rather than literary? I wonder whether that’s the male-author effect. I think SB Sarah and the Bitchery are experts on the topic of what is/is not a romance, and I’m curious about that.
I can’t help but believe it wouldn’t have mattered if this book were actually better- a whole lot of people will literally start reading the book automatically assuming it couldn’t possibly be as good as the first one, so it already has that fact against it. I will most definitely read it when it comes out tomorrow.
@Lindsayb – I can’t speak for other people but if I have read a book that’s really good, I actually go in expecting the sequel to be as good if not better rather than worse as you contend. (I only start expecting sequels to be bad at books 3 or 4 when I have reason to believe the author is just writing them because the publisher is pushing for it.)
@Anna – My non-expert guess is that if it was written by a woman AND if Don had been Donna and Rosie had been Ross…then it would be more likely to be shelved as romance. Maybe women’s fic. With a male POV for the entire book (pretty sure that’s the case for The Rosie Project?) but a female author, I’m not so sure.
You just summed up my objections to The Rosie Effect almost perfectly – I wanted so much to love it the way that I had the first book, but there were just too many little niggles, which added up to a bigger problem.
I usually don’t read reviews of books I intend to read–wanting to keep an open mind, as opposed to one colored by another’s experience–but I did read this review when you posted it originally. My dismay was great, my hesitation to start reading possibly greater. If I were Don, I would remind me not to break one of my own rules.
Having finished THE ROSIE EFFECT at 2:30 this morning, I can now say: You were absolutely right, SB Sarah; everything in your spreadsheet was revealed exactly so. My anxiety throughout was off the charts, not a comfortable experience at all, and I have ground my teeth over WTF-Rosie.
Still–and I’m directing this at anyone who isn’t sure they want to read this second book–my enjoyment of Don was undiminished. There is so much heart in this man, however he goes about the tasks before him. His self-awareness, his ability to love and care without being able to conventionally express either, are beautiful and breathtaking. I hope there will be more of Don. Thanks for a great review.