from the back cover:
"Cardiff in the 1980s is a place where maths can get you noticed. Rumis Vasi is the town's 'maths prodigy': untangling numbers and Rubik's Cubes protects her from the harsh vagaries of the playground and gives a pattern to her world. But after years of her father's determined tutoring, Rumi finds that numbers are beginning to lose their innocence. India infuses her with a romantic sense of belonging and, as she grows older, and desire becomes a dirty word in the Vasi household, the idea of love is opened up to painful examination.
In a voice that is by turns very funny and fiercely tender, Nikita Lalwani brings us a captivating story of high aspirations and deep longing, and of the sometime loneliness of childhood."

Read the first chapter courtesty of Penguin Tasters.

I read this book around the same time as Vikas Swarup's Q &A (better known by its film adaptation, Slumdog Millionare), and I could not help feeling how Rumi, growing up in the relative comfort of Cardiff, is even more of a trapped & emotionally orphaned being than the destitute & abandoned young boy in Bombay.
Both kids must learn to survive using their smarts, and both have an almost innate distrust of their elders, albeit for very different reasons, and under different circumstances.

Reserved for the South Asian VBB organized by ApoloniaX.

On its way by post to Annimanni. Enjoy!

Received with thanks!

This is a very tender, touching story and illustrates well the pressures of first- and second-generation immigrants. I recently read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Rumi's story kept reminding me of its real-life counterpart. Such a joyless life for a child...

A good review of Gifted from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jun/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview21

It was the British phone box on the cover which woke my interest... And then Annimanni highly recommended the book, end of story so far.

Began reading the book, but although it's well-written I think I do not want to read about the pressure the father is putting on his young daughter, who obviously has mathematical gifts. I'm not even sure he has her best interest in mind.
Will offer this to Annelis, who used to study mathematics - probably not forced by anybody.
Edit: Noticed that this is on Soozreader's wish list and I have tagged her with something else as well.

A wishlist tag!

Thank you very much for this wishlist book!