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The Cardiff Reading Group

The Cardiff Reading Group read, Gifted by Nikita Lalwani

The Cardiff Reading Group was formed about three years ago, and meets once a month. We have over twenty five members in total, although due to busy working and home lives, attendance at meetings varies from around six or seven up to twenty. Our members come from all walks of life, ranging from recent university graduates, to couples in their thirties and forties, and those who have retired from work and are rediscovering their love of literature. Most of us didn't know each other before joining the group. We have a strong male contingent – although typically at this meeting, only one man was present.

About the book
Being based in Wales, we often choose to read novels written by local authors, so were pleased to be sent Gifted, which is set in our home city of Cardiff in the 1980s. The references to landmarks that have long since disappeared provided an added extra appeal – and a good dose of nostalgia for some – in a book that was well-received by the whole group.

Gifted tells the tale of Rumi, a child maths prodigy, who dreams of getting accepted into Oxford University before her fifteenth birthday, and the relationship she has with her parents. It's a very readable book; simply written but full of emotion and intrigue. The main characters are complex and multi-dimensional, especially Rumi's parents. Deep down, you know her father, Mahesh – who moved from India to Cardiff after getting a full university scholarship – wants the best for his daughter, but his attempts to nurture her mathematics skills are at the expense of her social and emotional development.

Her mother, Shreene, is a lonely, lost woman. She never wanted to come to the UK and struggles to combine embracing a new culture while holding on to her roots. She finds it hard to communicate with her daughter who knows little of the land her parents have left behind. Nikita paints a wonderful portrait of a stressful household populated by people who want nothing more than to express their love and affection for one another, yet don't know how. As one of our members commented, they are like little islands floating around in the sea, not connecting because of their own issues they have not been able to deal with. As a result, one moment you want to give Shreene and Mahesh a good shake and snap them out of their behaviour; the next you're sympathising with them and while not condoning their actions at least understanding where they come from.

Amid all this are some great moments of humour – Mahesh's rigid studying schedule for Rumi and her rebellion, for example, which sees her sneaking off from her maths books and escaping into the world of Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers, to this day, essential reading for teenage girls everywhere. Like Rumi, Nikita grew up in Cardiff and we wondered how much of the book was based on her own experience. The author writes with such vivid detail, situations and characters are well-observed and very believable; leaving us debating how much was based on fact and how much on fiction. As a group, we have often discussed the tendency of first-time novelists to chuck all their ideas into the pot to produce a confusing jumble of ideas. Thankfully, Nikita doesn't fall into this trap. We're all very interested to see where she will go with her next novel.

The book ends with an element of resolution – although it is left quite open ended. We were divided on what we thought of this. Some would have liked even more ambiguity and to be allowed to form more of their own conclusions; others were desperate to know more about what happened after we leave the characters behind. We all agreed it was good to have an element of the unknown in a book, for an author to leave you thinking and wanting more, rather than dictating every last thought.