BOOK 1: #bookerprizelonglist2023

 The protagonist is thirteen-year-old Jamie O’Neill. There are two intertwined stories, one about Jamie and another about the teacher Mrs Tess Mahon.
 “Humans can survive without poems. It is nice to have them, but without them, no one suffers, whereas the world needs maths.”
 Jamie loves tall trees, winter, November, complete tales and poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Mathematics. He doesn’t like Francis Bacon but likes Paul Henry. He is a brilliant boy but is not like other students.
 “To understand how a person might feel, see it as a compliment. That’s how I’d see it. Sensitive people solve a lot of the world’s problems, so they’re problem solvers, ultimately.”   
 Sometimes people do not accept those who are different and often ridicule them and then some recognise them and accept them for who they are. I hated the principal Father Faulks for being mean and partial.
 “To some, the world is filled with threats. To others, opportunities.”
 Jamie wants to build a machine with which he can connect with his mother, who is no more.
 It is a sweet story about lost links, relationships, missing people, hurt, hidden truth, the chaos one builds around themselves or the mess others create due to all these reasons and more.
 Despite having many problems, some admire and appreciate the beauty in life. Some make it their objective to encourage and appreciate the effort of others.  
 Jamie is a well-drawn-out character one is sure to fall in love with. One falls for his innocence and his brilliance.
 “chaos is a branch of maths that proves dynamical systems whose random states of disorder and irregularities are governed by determined laws that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, right?”
 The clear crisp prose and the beautiful story make the book unputdownable, so I relished it. Parts of the book reads like a poem. The story is narrated with such tenderness that one melts reading it. The book speaks for itself depicting the brilliance of the author.