The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg (book review)

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules

Author:  Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

Published: 2012 (original) Canadian publication March 2014

Publisher: Harper Collins

Genre:  fiction, general fiction, humour

• ISBN: 9781443428262 (trade paperback)

Source:  personal copy

Readers around the world have fallen in love with the Senior League, five residents of the Diamond Retirement Home—Martha, The Genius, The Rake, Christina and Anna-Greta—who turn to a life of crime.

New owners have taken over the Diamond, making cost-cutting changes that have transformed the happy home into a dull and dreary place. The residents wonder if they wouldn’t be better off in prison! Martha gets an idea: they shall commit a crime that will ensure conviction—some type of financial crime, a small coup of some sort. They will give whatever they get to the poor and elderly. If Robin Hood could do it, so can they!

What starts as a robbery attempt at a nearby luxury hotel escalates to art theft from a major museum, the culprits armed only with bolt cutters and high-tech walkers. The Mafia gets wind of these robberies, and suddenly the underworld has its eye on both the stolen paintings and the handiwork of The Genius. Soon the Senior League has both the law and the lawless at their heels.

My thoughts:

With all the recent cuts at their retirement home, Martha and her friends couldn't help compare their circumstances to those of prisoners.  In fact, they noted that prisoners have it better!  They get well-fed, exercise time outdoors, and access to a gym.  Considering that, these five friends decide to commit the perfect crime where no one gets hurt but that offers an opportunity to better their situation with jail time!

If you're thinking this is outrageous and potentially hilarious, you're right!  The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules is a wickedly funny look at the life of crime as only they can pull it off, walkers and canes and all!

An enormous hit in Sweden, The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules was published in Canada in 2014.  It has been a hit!  I highly recommend it for the writing, the well-rounded characters, humour and tension.  Pick it up and see for yourself.

#TheLittleOldLadyWhoBrokeAlltheRules  #bookreview #2014publication

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion - book review

The Rosie Project
Author:  Graeme Simsion
Publisher:  Harper Collins
Published:  2013 (original place of publication:  Australia)
Pages:  329
Genre:  Fiction; romantic comedy
Source:  Borrowed 

Wife Wanted.

Must be punctual, logical, and enjoy travelling by bicycle.  No smokers, drinkers, or horoscope readers need apply.

Don Tillman has a brilliant scientific mind, but social situations confound him.  He's never had a second date.  And so, in the evidence-based manner in which he approaches all things, he embarks upon the Wife Project; a sixteen-page questionnaire to find the perfect partner.  Then in walks Rosie Jarman.

Rosie is on a quest of her own.  She's looking for her biological father; a search that a certain genetics expert might just be able to help her with.  Soon Don puts the Wife Project on the back burner in order to help Rosie purse the Father Project.  As an unlikely relationship blooms, Don is about to realize that, despite the best scientific efforts, you don't find love; love finds you.

My thoughts:

"I may have found a solution to the Wife Problem.  As with so many scientific breakthroughs, the answer was obvious in retrospect.  But had it not been for a series of unscheduled events, it is unlikely I would have discovered it."  (opening paragraph, page 1)

By page six, I was laughing to the point of tears.  On page 24, I commented to my husband, "Oh dear, this book is just too much fun."

My husband was the "captive" recipient of several oral readings from The Rosie Project as we were driving and he was nearby, being the only other person in the vehicle.  I just couldn't keep it in and so we shared some laughs during our long drive south and back.  

"Claudia advised me that I should have abandoned the experiment prior to Elizabeth leaving.  Obviously.  But at what point?  Where was the signal?  These are the subtleties I fail to see.....The Apricot Ice-cream Disaster had cost a whole evening of my life, compensated for only by the information about simulation algorithms."

Professor Don Tillman is a scientist studying the genetic predisposition for cirrhosis of the liver, entailing the intoxication of  mice. Don Tillman is not unlike Gregory Peck in appearance but incredibly socially awkward, slow to pick up on social cues, and incredibly similar to Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory.  (If you enjoy The Big Bang Theory, you'll love this book, as I do.)  He's an adorable nerd, funny in his own way, with limited empathy and uncertain of his ability to learn to love.  Yet, he will sacrifice his own career as a professor at a renowned university to help a beautiful lady.  A choice he has to ponder at great length to identify his motive.

When Don realizes that his motive for helping Rosie with The Father Project in an after hours unethical investigation utilizing the lab at the university is not purely academic, he finds himself in a world totally foreign to his logical, methodical, systematical self.  He scales walls, collects hair samples, bar tends, obtains urine samples..... He even put his own Wife Project on hold to assist Rosie with hers.  Aside from the scientific collection and analysis of data, all this is foreign territory to this adorable funny nerd.  

The Rosie Project is a charming and disarming exploration of the pursuit of love in a world of algorithms and logic as defined by science that unwittingly turns a man's world upside down in hysterical fashion.  If asked to describe The Rosie Project in one word, I would say "tantalizing."  For truly it is!  I absolutely loved this book.

****With great anticipation, I'm excited to announce a sequel to The Rosie Project:  The Rosie Effect - to be released late September 2014.  I simply must pre-order my copy.  It's the logical thing to do.

About the author:

Graeme Simsion, PhD was the owner of a successful consulting business before he decided, at fifty, that he would become a writer.  The Rosie Project is his first novel.  Graeme is a New Zealand born Australian author, playwright, screen writer and data modeller.  He won the 2012 Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award for his debut novel, The Rosie Project.

www.gremesimsion.com

Twitter:  @GraemeSimsion and #ProfDonTillman

#TheRosieProject   #GraemeSimsion