The Rosie Result (Don Tillman Book 3) by Graeme Simsion
ISBN: 9781925773811 (hardcover – May 28, 2019)
ISBN: 9781925773828 (trade paperback – May 28, 2019)
ISBN: 9781925774580 (ebook – February 5, 2019)
ASIN: B07KRNFGJD (Kindle edition – May 28, 2019)
Publisher: Text Publishing
I was standing on one leg shucking oysters when the problems began…
Don and Rosie are back in Melbourne after a decade in New York, and they’re about to face their most important project.
Their son, Hudson, is having trouble at school: his teachers say he isn’t fitting in with the other kids. Meanwhile, Rosie is battling Judas at work, and Don is in hot water after the Genetics Lecture Outrage. The life-contentment graph, recently at its highest point, is curving downwards.
For Don Tillman, geneticist and World’s Best Problem-Solver, learning to be a good parent as well as a good partner will require the help of friends old and new.
It will mean letting Hudson make his way in the world and grappling with awkward truths about his own identity.
And opening a cocktail bar.
Hilarious and thought-provoking, with a brilliant cast of characters and an ending that will have readers cheering for joy, The Rosie Result is the triumphant final installment of the internationally bestselling series that began with The Rosie Project.
We were first introduced to Rosie Jarman and Don Tillman in the delightful The Rosie Project. Rosie was a psychology doctoral student in search of her biological father and Don was a research professor in search of a wife. I won’t go into all of the amazing details of their relationship, but let’s just say it was fraught with comedic errors, mostly unintentional. By the end of the book, Don had proposed marriage and Rosie accepted. In the second book in this series, The Rosie Effect, Don and Rosie are living in the United States. Don is working in research at Columbia University and Rosie is finishing her doctorate and just entering medical school when she learns she’s pregnant. Again, errors of omission and commission occur and their relationship flounders for a while before they regain their footing and have their baby, a son named Hudson.
Fast-forward eleven years and the Tillman family has moved back to Australia from New York City. Don has become embroiled in a racist stereotype brouhaha at his college, which was definitely not his intention, but in this era of social media and judge first and ask questions later, the school can’t be seen as insensitive. As a result of this incident, Don takes a sabbatical and decides to become the primary carer for his son. Rosie is also going through some political machinations at her job and feels torn between her responsibilities to her son and those of a job that she feels is important. Hudson, on the other hand, didn’t want to leave New York, is dealing with the death of a grandparent and also somewhat of a social outcast at his new school. Don sees parallels between Hudson’s school life and his own tortured school life and tries his best to provide advice, all the while avoiding a psychological diagnosis of Asperger’s, Autistic, or Neuro-atypical for his child. Don and Rosie are also working together to get a new business off the ground, a bar. Don is used to solving problems but is having difficulty solving the problems his son is facing, as well as facing the reality of his own possibly diagnosis of Asperger’s, along with new business woes, his wife’s job issues, and more. Can Don, Rosie, and Hudson successfully navigate a society that wants to diagnose and often ostracize anyone that is slightly different?
The Rosie Result is the third book in the Don Tillman series by Graeme Simsion. I considered it to be a fast-paced and thoroughly engaging read. As with the previous books in this series, Mr. Simsion deals with relationship dynamics in a realistic manner, that is sometimes painful and sometimes quite humorous (just like life). I enjoyed getting to know Don’s family a bit better in this book, along with Rosie’s father. Don and Rosie’s friends from New York, Sonia and Dave along with their children, move to Australia for work. We even get to see the grown-up Carl and Eugenie, along with their parents Gene and Claudia. George the drummer even makes a token appearance. This story includes a wide variety of topics, including domestic violence, anti-vaxxers, the rights of children to medical care against parental wishes, well-meaning school personnel wishing to pigeon-hole children with a blanket diagnosis if they’re just a little bit different, dying wishes, acceptance for who and what people are without judgment, and lots of family drama. It’s been interesting to watch Don and Rosie’s relationship develop and change over these three books and I loved the incorporation of their son and his drama in this third book. If you’ve already read The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect I probably don’t have to tell you to grab a copy of The Rosie Result to read as it’s most likely already on your TBR list. If you haven’t already read The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, first where have you been for the past few years?!, and second, go grab copies and read them ASAP! After you’ve successfully read those two books, you’re now ready for The Rosie Result. I encourage you to take a few weekends to enjoy these books or set the three books aside for your vacation reading. Seriously, if you haven’t read these books, get your copies and start reading. Just in case you couldn’t tell, I consider The Rosie Result to be a must read book and this entire series to be a must read series. (And yes, I reread the first two books before I read the third one. I’ll probably reread all three books at some later this year simply because I enjoyed them all so much.) All I can say at this point is thank you Mr. Simsion for hours of reading pleasure with the Don Tillman series. I’m going to miss Rosie, Don, Hudson, and their friends and family.
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