Customer Reviews

Gifted

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Fifteen minutes ago I finished 'Gifted' and want to present a different account than most of the reviews here. I won't recap the plot about young Rumi, her critically insensitive (but loving) father, and her sad and rather bewildered mother, as many people have offered the main points. My own central point is this: Agreed, the novel isn't perfect; but, parts of it are. Lalwani is so attuned to, and articulately expressive of, the emotions felt in a family (even an atypically dysfunctional family) that the book is engaging. It represents in acutely painful terms the nightmare of emotionally missing each other that most of us experience in our families --but for us, it's a flash of a moment here and there, whereas for Rumi it's extenuated and expanded into a continuous reality. I did care about Rumi, as I read.

A previous reviewer complained that none of the characters communicated - well, right! This is Lalwani's desire, to make us look at what happens to a bright, open, unusual child who is forced to play out a parent's impossibly rigid vision for her, week after week and year after year. Rumi feels unknown and unseen, and she is. I found a lot of the negative comments to be about a focus on the trees (details), instead of the forest (overall book). Yes, the family walks to the cinema and returns by 'car'. Perhaps a taxi? Is this really a problem worth noting? Consider instead a passage Lalwani includes in this very section of the book. As the family walks along, Rumi, at this point a pre-teen, experiences some rare light-hearted, in-sync moments with her parents. Everyone highly anticipates some fun together. But then the mother becomes tense about an exchange with her husband, and the world tilts: "She [the mother] laughed, a bitter rind to the sound. Rumi held her breath in her chest and looked at Mahesh [her father], fearful that it was all going to come tumbling down, that they would now sit in the cinema in silence, Shreene's [her mother's] mouth curdled with irritation, immersed in a cycle of resentment that there was no way to break. If this was the beginning of one of Shreene's moods it would start with the silent treatment, her mother possibly abstaining from food and drink not only in the cinema but until Maresh said sorry (which, from experience, could be very late at night or even, terrifyingly, the next day). Rumi's mind juddered." How beautifully does this passage capture the anxiety felt by a young girl who gets far too little joy and fears that her current experience of it is about to evaporate forever. There are many such passages in the book. Give it a chance.

Nikita Lalwani's Booker Prize nominated debut novel "Gifted" tells the tragic story of the slow nine-year implosion and disintegration of an immigrant family trying to raise their mathematically gifted daughter in Cardiff, Wales--a culture that the parents poorly understand and privately loathe. The book delves deeply into how even the most well-intended objectives can have harmful--and even tragic results--particularly when they are played out upon a stage of cultural bias and emotional blindness.

This is the tale of Rumi Vasi, a child who finds immense satisfaction, beauty, and mystery in numbers. As a very young child, Rumi interpret the world through numbers--numbers are fascinating, harmonious, and enticing. In particular, she loves the number 512. It is friendly because it can be created through a process of repeated doubling and this reminds her of her father's two open hands lovingly cradling her face between his palms. But all this natural joy for numbers comes crashing down around the child when her parents are told by Rumi's teacher that she is a mathematical genius--that they need to intervene in her education to make sure she makes the best of her talents.

The teacher suggests she be introduced to Mensa, a society for highly gifted children and adults. Instead, Mahesh, Rumi's controlling and emotionally blind father decides to take the task entirely on himself. There is a great deal of cultural mistrust and misunderstanding behind this fateful decision.

Mahesh develops a rigorous study routine that leaves Rumi virtually no chance for play, self-development, or self-discovery. Mahesh knows all too well how difficult it is for an immigrant to become successful in Great Britain--doubly so when this person is a member of a culture, like India, that Mahesh strongly feels is misunderstood and undervalued. To succeed in this new environment, he believes that Rumi must not only be outstanding, she must be the very best--a nationally recognized child prodigy capable of gaining admittance to Oxford when she is only 14 years old. That is the lofty goal that Mahesh sets for his daughter.

By the end of the novel, Rumi is deeply harmed but on a possible path toward recovery. On the other hand, Mahesh is humiliated in the national media and abandoned by his daughter. He becomes a fully tragic figure despite the fact that we have little reason to identify with, or like his controlling, highly judgmental, and emotionally damaged character.

Rumi's mother, Shreene, is also a character with major tragic overtones. By the end of the work, we care a great deal about this highly intelligent and self-sacrificing human being. Shreene's tragedy begins before Rumi is born and it only gets worse as her daughter's story unfolds.

Although this story is written about an Indian family immigrating to Wales, it is not a story that is particularly unique to Indian immigrants or to Wales. This tale could easily have been written about a family from a vast number of different cultures immigrating to just about any Western country. This book deals with one of the central problems of out times--an era where multiculturalism has become necessary but is failing in almost every major Western city worldwide.

One can't help asking: what would have happened to this family if they had remained in India--had they not immigrated to Great Britain? Undoubtedly, in India, each member would have flourished emotionally--in India there would have been no tragedy at the core of their lives. So who is the villain here? Surely, the villain and the book's core message is one of failed multiculturalism--rampant lack of understanding and acceptance for other cultures that festers at the foundation of virtually all our societies.

Gifted is being marketed both as an adult and a young adult novel. It has strong literary merit and is worthy of being included in the young adult curriculum. This book has much to teach the young. As a society, we must learn how to diminish cross-cultural failure--we must learn to improve cross-cultural understanding and valuation. This book could help in a small, but significant, way to achieve these goals.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It touched my heart and it left me with a great deal to ponder. I recommend it highly.

Nikita Lalwani's Booker longlisted novel "Gifted" may or may not have been inspired by the much publicized real life case of a child prodigy hothoused by her ambitious father for fame and glory who later dropped out of Oxford University to become a part time prostitute. Though their backgrounds are by no means identical, there are strong parallels - both come from Asian families. There must be something about Asian families - and that include Oriental families - for whom education is the only passport to a better life and for which parents are willing to sacrifice everything for their children's future. A fair enough starting point for parents perhaps except that when they start putting on blinkers and the child becomes an object or a pawn for its family's ambitions, that's when the trouble begins.

"Gifted" doesn't pretend to make any profound statements about this phenomenon. It is a cautionary tale that unless the "gifted" child however young is consulted or even included in the fasttracking process, things can and will get out of hand. Mahesh and Shreene aren't remotely the monsters you might think them to be. Their apparent cruelty and lack of sensitivity towards Rumi's growing up teenage needs merely reflect their anxiety for the child to fulfill her exceptional potential. Everything else - even the recognition that but for her intellect, Rumi is like any other teenage girl - becomes secondary or unimportant. Their own cultural and religious belief - especially in the case of Shreene - and the fact that Rumi is growing up in a western secular society only compound the problem. Interestingly, unlike typical children of immigrants, Rumi doesn't reject her parents' values and is happiest when she returns to her motherland for holiday.

For a newcomer, Lalwani is remarkably accomplished. Her prose flows smoothly and her plot is always believable. An easy entertaining read, "Gifted" addresses a phenomenon only too familiar to Asians. Readers from Confucianist societies will certainly empathise with Rumi's anguish and hopefully learn from it.

One thing I've noticed is that reviewers in major periodicals often quote extensively from the book they're reviewing when they can't find much to praise about it. This, I guess, helps pad out their review and prevents them from hurting an author's feelings, an author who might very well be in the position of reviewing their own book one day. Maybe.

I do wish more reviewers (the paid ones) would be a bit more honest, if they didn't enjoy the book then actually have the courage to admit it. "Gifted" is a disappointing novel, even when you take in account that it is a first one. Like "Bee Season," it tells the story of a father whose plans for his precocious daughter wind up alienating both his wife and son, and ultimately his daughter. Rumi Vasi is a gifted mathematician growing up in Wales in the eighties. Her father micromanages her life with the intention of having Rumi accepted to Oxford College by age 15. Like Eliza in "Bee Season," Rumi is also drawn to the pleasures that more ordinary youth enjoy and ultimately winds up sabotaging her father's and her own dreams. Also explored is the theme of assimiliation, as the Vasis are Indian faced with adapting to Western culture.

However, like "Bee Season," the book suffered from the author's attempt to tell several stories at once. None predominated, and although I felt sympathy for all three (and the neglected son), I wasn't able to get a distinct sense of them as more than stock characters. It also failed to capture how uniquely a gifted child sees the world, while still remaining emotionally a child. Also the mother's antipathy toward her child was not completely convincing - if she worried that she was going to wind up an old maid, why not spend more time trying to make the girl dress and behave in a more socially acceptable way?

I expected to like this book. I had read promising reviews and the premise sounded - and is - interesting. However, I felt it was let down by the writing, which I found muddled and long-winded.

The story: Rumi is the only daughter of Indian immigrants living in Wales. On her first day at school, the teacher identifies her as being exceptionally bright and recommends that she join Mensa. Instead her father, Mahesh, decides that he can guide her to develop her fullest potential and so Rumi embarks on a rigorous program of study with few diversions allowed. As she grows older and starts to get interested in boys and popular culture, she increasingly chafes at the constraints put on her - not just by her father, but by teachers, journalists and others who all seem to have a view on how this "gift" of her extreme intelligence should be utilized.

When I read, I like to be involved with at least one character in the book. I don't always have to like them or approve of what they do, but I do need to at least care what happens to them. I admired how Lalwani shows us Rumi's view of the world (everything is a math equation), but I didn't particularly care about any of these characters and I actively disliked the father. The book felt disjointed, as if Lalwani was trying to cover too many bases. Also, the writing alternated between the present and past tense, for reasons that I could not understand.

I'm really surprised that this book made the Booker long list. I think the idea behind the novel is very interesting, but Lalwani failed to deliver on it. I almost gave up on it, but I kept reading and I'm glad that I did because it picks up towards the ending when Rumi hits her teens. Even though I found it flawed, it would be a good choice for a book club as there is a lot to discuss about family relationships, the experience of immigrants, and the importance that our society places on intelligence.

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Initially I had expected Nikita Lalwani's Gifted to follow the standard formula used by many authors in "coming-of-age/two-cultures-colliding/South Asian diaspora" fiction and nonfiction. And on the surface, Gifted is yet another of those tales, rife with cultural and generational misunderstandings, conflicts of filial piety and longing for the old country. However, once the story gets moving, Lalwani delivers something darker and more sinister than other books of the genre.

Gifted tells the story of Rumi Vasi, a young math genius who struggles with her emotionally distant, overbearing parents and life in general. Rumi is socially stunted by the uber-strict academic regimen imposed by her parents. Intellectually, Mr. and Mrs. Vasi expect their child to behave as an adult, however they are completely blind to her emotional needs as a young adolescent. The family has serious relationship problems and much of their treatment of Rumi can be classified as a form of emotional, and in some instances physical, abuse. It is against this unhealthy backdrop that Rumi is pushed to qualify for early entrance - at the age of 14 - to Oxford University. It seems that the only thing uniting this family, indeed the sole bond between them, is their misguided shared goal of Rumi's acceptance to Oxford. While Rumi finds solace in the world of complex numbers, it is numbers, and her parent's overwhelming drive that she excel at them, that are ultimately responsible for her undoing.

Lalwani's prose is peppered with awkward verbiage, and I noted a few inconsistencies in the story (the most glaring example: at one point in the story the main character and her family walk from their home to a theater to see Ghandi. The walk is detailed over several pages. At the end of the evening, the main character is described as looking out "the window of the car" as the family drives home.) The author was stingy with her physical descriptions of Rumi, so I often felt that I didn't really know what she looked like. Initially I envisioned Rumi as a young, Indian Ugly Betty, however events later in the book confusingly gave the impression that she is something of a stunner. Aside from details provided about the character's clothing, it found it was frustratingly difficult to conjure Rumi's physical appearance, and with this particular story I felt that I needed to know what she looked like.

Perhaps there is a purpose to Lalwani's stilted writing style. Rumi is excruciatingly awkward, to the point that it is almost uncomfortable to read about some of her exploits. Her distant, demanding parents somehow manage to miss glaring warning signs that something is very wrong with their daughter. Their stark indifference to their daughter's actual needs and their intense focus on what they perceive to be her best interest are difficult to digest, although I do not doubt for a minute that such scenarios can and do exist. In an effort to comfort herself (or perhaps as a cry for help), Rumi develops a bizarre (and disgusting) habit and begins behaving in a manner that is almost painful to read about. Her strange behavior belies the fact that she is a child desperate for attention who has gone so long without that she has no idea how to attain it. The book makes a bold statement about parents who push children to achieve academic excellence. Rumi's parents have a singular goal for their oldest child which they blindly pursue irregardless of the effects on their daughter, which are, unfortunately, devastating for the entire family.

Gifted is an "immigrant" story with a twist - one that explores the darker side of parent-child relationships and immigrant dreams. However, Lalwani needs to rein in her sometimes over-the-top writing style. While the story is fraught with flowery analogies and holes in the plot, it still managed to resonate with me days after finishing it. If anything, it will make you think twice about pushing a loved one to do something he or she may not want to do.

Rumi Vasi is a bright girl, daughter of overachieving Indian parents, who is labelled from her first year in school as being mathematically gifted. Mahesh is her father--a controlling, obsessive man who feels compelled to honor this "gift" by subjecting his daughter to a fanatically rigorous course of study and discipline. Shreene is her mother--a woman struggling to reconcile her Indian culture with the western world as she finds it in Cardiff, Wales. The book follows Rumi's career path from socially inept school-girl to early admission to Oxford, to meltdown and disaster. Of course, there's much more to the plot, and you'll have to read the book to get the whole picture.

This novel is part of a burgeoning literature of the Indian diaspora in the West, ambitious bright intellectuals struggling with their ancient roots in a new and different world. It is not one of the better works.

Author Nikita Lalwani writes in a fevered prose, with long sentences, too many adjectives, and oddly jarring figures of speech. She switches abruptly from one character's point of view to another's, and from past to present tense, which makes for a difficult, unsettling read. Her characters suffer intensely, brood internally, but seldom communicate effectively. Like some other reviewers, I found it hard to really connect with these characters. This was a difficult story for me to read, and the ending was deeply unsatisfying. If you're looking for a coming-of-age story with no easy resolution and no happy ending, well, this might be the book for you. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

The story of young Rumi Vasi, math genius, and her family explores many themes including adolescence, the nature of genius, and an Indian family living in England. At a young age it is discovered the Rumi is gifted in mathematics and her father takes it upon himself to nurture those skills and help her get into Oxford at the age of 15.

Immediately the book "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri and the movie, "Bend it Like Beckham" written and directed by Gurinder Chadha came to mind, both sharing some storylines of Indian family's displaced. While these two stories memorized me, "Gifted" did not.

I tried desperately to connect to Rumi, succeeding only a few times. I felt bad for her mother, and did not like her father. The parents both seemed confused in their parenting abilities and I wished for them to have more compassion and realize that things were not as they seemed with Rumi.

Three parts of the story were specifically enjoyable for me, Rumi interacting with her little brother Nibu, Rumi's two trips to India, and Rumi living away from home while attending Oxford. Maybe I enjoyed these small sections because I was in someway able to relate to them, unlike other parts of the story.

I connected to the idea of the story but not the execution. I am sure some people will enjoy this book, it just wasn't for me and that happens.

I've hear people complain that the evil character in fansaty is alway the "Dark Lord" etc yet this book proved to me that there are more painful ways of pointing a figure at the "evil" character in the open...spending the whole first 2 chapters on repeting the same point in case you did not get the hint the first 3 or 4 times. The plot is repeated in each of the parts of the book with only a change in backdrop and events to give the appearance of movement within the story. Even children Rumi and Numi seem flat and ageless as Bart and Lisa Simpson.

Time appearent jumps between scenes without any hint to the reader, not even the "..." appears in the kindle addition of the story.

After finishing this book I can not say I even feel that I know why the author put figures to keys or what she hoped to get out of the story. It left me wish to A) tear up even copy of this dibble & B) To prevent anyone from ever leaving there homeland to prevent the type of isolation of morals and values from happing.

I give this book 2 stars off the base of:
1. The book was formated well for the kindle
2. The character Whitefoot who had the chance to interesting and make the rest of the character interact, not just co-exist, but is introduced late in the story and scene are more of an after thought then feeling like the rest of the book.

I just finished this book and couldn't help but think, "That's it?" The book plodded. Shamelessly.

The plot line was initially interesting, interesting enough for me to pick the book up at the library, but for a YA book it was painfully slow. I felt like each page was wearing a cinder block. Not because of heavy emotional content, but just because... ugh.

I did appreciate the treatment and exploration of an immigrant family and their interactions with a new culture, that is why the book gets two stars instead of a vehement one. I felt that would have made a far more interesting to expand on those aspects of the narrative than having paragraphs devoted to Rumi's mental math.

I'm kind of surprised this was in the YA section. Does a book beginning with a 10yo main character qualify it for kids? I thought the parents and the family dynamic were portrayed at a level a little elevated for early teens and often there were vocabulary words I hadn't encountered.

If you're looking for a light-hearted, intensely gripping book exemplifying all that makes YA such a guilty pleasure, go for Anna Godbersen's The Luxe. If you're looking for something to make your biochemistry book a gripping page turner, go for this.