Don Tillman is a genetics professor who is socially inept and awkward. His entire life is completely scheduled at every moment to make sure he is using his time with maximum efficiency. He has decided it's time to find a wife but that dating is a highly inefficient use of time so he has decided to embark on the Wife Project by putting together a questionnaire to reduce down the number of prospective partners to only those that he considers highly suitable and he has enlisted his few friends to help him weed through the responses. After asking this, Rosie knocks on his door and Don is assuming that she is a candidate his friend had sent along and is shocked when she exhibits traits that are most definitely not what he is looking for like smoking and a possibly only average IQ. He is prepared to let her down when she reveals that she is actually looking for her father and was hoping that he would be able to help her in this endeavor and thus begins the Father Project. The Father Project begins simply enough, get DNA samples from some perspective fathers and have Don test them at the lab. When those do not match however, it turns into a much bigger project than either of them anticipated and their time together leads to more than either of them bargained for.
I have major issues with this book. First, Don presents very much as an Asperger's or high-functioning autistic in many ways, possibly with OCD as well. The author states that he is not actually at one point very late in the book but then Don goes on to compare himself to them in his lack of emotions. WTF?!?!?! Obviously, the author did not do his research in the slightest as it has been proven that most of those on the PDD spectrum suffer from being too emotional and a surplus of empathy that they can not process which is why they shy away from social interactions. Most interaction is too overwhelming for them but it is most certainly not a lack of emotion. Second, Don has had an incredibly scheduled life but is able to completely change absolutely everything about his schedule and self in a matter of a few days when he decides to. Um, No! Sorry but it's clearly stated that he has psychological issues even though they are not fully understood or diagnosed and a lifetime of habits like that would clearly indicate that his schedules are not an arbitrary thing that he would be able to dismiss at the drop of a hat (or the wink of an eye by a woman). Again, showing the complete lack of research or understanding of these types of disorders by the author. I feel that the lack of understanding and use of horribly wrong stereo-types of people with these types of disorders to create a "romantic comedy" is sickening. I think the author should be ashamed of himself for going for cheap laughs at the expense of those with psychological disorders.
Page count: 305p/23,203p ytd/204,241p lifetime
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