In The Rosie Effect, we pick up where we left Don and Rosie – on their way to New York, with the anticipation of new adventures fresh on our minds.

They’ve been married for 10 months, and life is going well for Don in NY. He has more friends than he’s ever had, and without the Dean breathing down his neck at work, he’s able to put his own style of scientific rigor on the dissecting mice project that is in full swing at University.

Rosie is continuing her ambitious double whammy – finishing her PHD and studying to become a doctor at the same time. Everything seems to be as perfect as you can expect from Don and Rosie.

In the midst of their usual meal, Rosie announces that they have “something to celebrate” and it’s at this point that we lose the Rosie that we know, and she turns into some demon shrew, whose only purpose in the novel is to cause misery for everyone she comes into contact with.

I found myself thinking “poor Don” throughout this book, and not in a way where you expect things to get better, but where you know that everything is just going to get worse. Rosie is unreasonable, and this is beyond the expectations of reasonableness for pregnant women – she’s suddenly decided that Don no longer fits the bill of loving husband, and certainly isn’t prepared for fatherhood.

As Don himself says, he’s not immune from feelings, but knows how and when they are best put to use. And so it doesn’t sit well with the reader to read about Rosie’s eye rolls and varying opinion of Don’s ability to be a suitable parent. It’s glaringly obvious to us that he’s got the stuff required to do it in spectacular Tillman fashion.

There’s a lot of the same charm that endeared us in “The Rosie Project”, and our favourite characters – womanizing Gene, Don’s parents, etc, make appearances, but where before Rosie and Don were partners in crime, in this novel Don is alone in his follies, and there’s a particular sadness to this, when he’s ashamed of his actions and displays doubts about whether he’s meant to be around people.

You can expect the same types of “oh no he didn’t!” vignettes that were enjoyable in the first novel, however they are by no means as good as the first book in terms of second hand embarrassment. There’s only a handful of occasions when Don does something unusual, but the effects are longlasting and felt throughout the entire novel.

Don overcomes adversity and wins everyone over in the end, but the lack of faith from Rosie tarnishes the whole novel. I left this book feeling that she doesn’t deserve Don and didn’t really care what happened to her!

Don Tillman is back and he is as frustrating and hilarious as ever. But this time it's not to find love, it's Bud. Baby Under Development. Graeme Simsion is a master at weaving brilliant characters together and The Rosie Effect is sure to live up to its name. If you havent had the pleasure of meeting Don Tillman yet, do yourself a favour and read The Rosie Project and then snap up this one.

20 months since Don Tillman first charmed the world with his particular way of doing things in The Rosie Project, he's now in New York and expecting a baby in our Book of the Month for October, The Rosie Effect.

Graeme Simsion jumps straight back into Don and Rosie's life, and those who know Don from The Rosie Project will find him pretty much exactly as expected, getting into all sorts of trouble with his logical ways. Social skills, as ever, are not his forte.

Sure to be as much of an international phenomenon as its predecessor, this is as wonderfully warm, at times slightly sad, and funny read. If you're not on the Rosie bandwagon yet, it's time to jump aboard!