To Love and Be Loved
If you're a fan of The Big Bang Theory, you'll hear Sheldon Cooper's voice all over this unconventional romantic comedy. I love Sheldon, and I loved Don, the "differently-wired" narrator at the heart of Graeme Simsion's charming and thought-provoking novel.
Don is a brilliant geneticist who has worked very hard to live a life that makes sense to him. He's got a meal plan, and accompanying grocery list, for each day of the week. He knows precisely how many minutes it takes to clean his bathroom. He has exactly two friends, and calls his mother on Sundays.
Surely he can apply the same organizational skills to his latest project: finding a wife. All he needs is a simple questionnaire and he can eliminate all but the most compatible women. He doesn't need the complications of dating. He has science!
Enter Rosie, a smoking, drinking bartender who would fail every question on Don's test, and yet Don can't stay away from her. Chaos ensues, much to Don's chagrin.
Simsion nails Don's voice throughout, making him both brilliant and awkward. Several scenes are laugh-out-loud funny, and would be perfect movie scenes, as when Don practices dance steps with--what else?--a skeleton from the biology department.
Don is always trying to sort out the world, and so shows us that he's just like everyone else, even with his Asperger's Syndrome traits.
And we're all just trying to sort it out, aren't we?
