Books like The Rosie Project
What should you read after Graeme Simsion’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Graeme Simsion
- Romantic comedy
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The Rosie Project
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchEleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
The same trick from the other direction: a rigid, literal, very funny narrator whose routine cracks open once somebody insists on being her friend.
- A narrator who explains himself literally
- Comedy that never mocks him
- Warm and genuinely funny
- Real trauma under the comedy
Best for the narrator's mindThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon
Haddon's fifteen-year-old detective explains the world with the same unembarrassed precision Don does, diagrams included. The book Simsion gets compared to most.
- A narrator who explains himself literally
- A life run on a schedule
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A teenager, not a professor
Worth a look — with a warningAn Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Hank Green
Shares the brisk comic first person and a narrator over-explaining her own decisions, then goes somewhere much stranger involving alien sculptures and internet fame.
- A narrator who explains himself literally
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A happy ending you can trust
- A science-fiction premise
Great matchThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Rachel Joyce
A retired man posts a letter and simply keeps walking. The same gentle comedy of an ordinary Englishman doing something absurd for an entirely sincere reason.
- Comedy that never mocks him
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A happy ending you can trust
- Melancholy under the whimsy
Great matchThe 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
Jonas Jonasson
Farce with a deadpan centre: an old man climbs out of a window and chaos follows him around Sweden. If you read Rosie mainly to laugh, start here.
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A happy ending you can trust
- Comedy that never mocks him
- Broad farce, less heart
Great matchMajor Pettigrew's Last Stand
Helen Simonson
A precise, proper widower falls for someone entirely outside his rules, and the comedy comes from watching his certainties give way. Very charming company.
- A life run on a schedule
- A woman who breaks the system
- Warm and genuinely funny
- English village, older cast
Best for the rules-bound heroA Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman
Ove has a schedule, a set of standards and no interest in you, until the neighbours refuse to leave him alone. The most reliable crowd-pleaser here.
- A life run on a schedule
- Comedy that never mocks him
- A happy ending you can trust
- Grief is central to it
Worth a look — with a warningMe Before You
Jojo Moyes
The romance half rather than the comedy half: a chaotic woman and a rigid man improving each other. Prepare yourself properly for the ending.
- A woman who breaks the system
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A happy ending you can trust
- A devastating conclusion
Best for the formatWhere'd You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
Told in emails, letters and school memos, about a brilliant misfit whose allergy to other people has become a crisis. Probably the funniest book on this list.
- Warm and genuinely funny
- The Wife Project questionnaire
- A narrator who explains himself literally
- Mother and daughter, not romance
Great matchThe Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer
All letters and all charm: a writer collects a set of eccentric islanders and their history. The same faith that decent people can carry a whole book.
- A happy ending you can trust
- Warm and genuinely funny
- Comedy that never mocks him
- Wartime occupation material
Great matchThe Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin
A prickly bookseller with rules about everything has his life rearranged without his permission. Short, warm, and built on the same faith in second chances.
- A life run on a schedule
- A happy ending you can trust
- Warm and genuinely funny
- Bereavement in the opening pages
Best if you want more DonThe Rosie Effect
Graeme Simsion
The direct sequel, with Don in New York and out of his depth in an entirely new way. Most readers find it funny but a clear step down from the first.
- A narrator who explains himself literally
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A woman who breaks the system
- Weaker than book one, by consensus
Worth a look — with a warningThe Fault in Our Stars
John Green
Here for the fast, funny dialogue between two people who talk in their own private register. Everything else about it is a different weather system.
- A woman who breaks the system
- Warm and genuinely funny
- A happy ending you can trust
- Teenagers with cancer
What should you read after The Rosie Project?
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — the same trick from the other direction: a rigid, literal, very funny narrator whose routine cracks open once somebody insists on being her friend.
If what stayed with you was a narrator who explains himself literally, read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon instead: haddon's fifteen-year-old detective explains the world with the same unembarrassed precision Don does, diagrams included. The book Simsion gets compared to most. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green is the other strong option — shares the brisk comic first person and a narrator over-explaining her own decisions, then goes somewhere much stranger involving alien sculptures and internet fame.
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