The Rosie Effect

It's harder to write a great sequel to a book than it is to write a great book. It's even harder to write a great sequel to a great book.

Graeme Simsion did that.

I read and loved The Rosie Project last year. I pushed it off on lots of my book friends.

I'm not much of a sequel girl, so it was with great trepidation that I approached The Rosie Effect this morning, the first day of the brand new year. Don't let me down, I murmured, Please don't let me down.

I'm so happy to say that The Rosie Effect did not let me down. I say this about very, very few sequels: The Rosie Effect might even be a little bit better than The Rosie Project.

You have to love Don and Rosie, with their off-putting personality quirks, and you have to love how they found each other in this crazy world.

Now, in Effect, they decide to bring a baby into the mix. Well, Rosie does, somehow thinking Don will follow. When he doesn't, it can cause all sorts of fascinating problems, knowing, as we do from the start, that this author is going to find some kind of wacky way to work everything out.

Okay, I've probably said too much, but I suggest, no, I urge you to get this fun novel and give it a read yourself. It's zany and improbable and hopeless, just like real life, and I think you just might love it as much as I do.