An Invisible Sign of My Own: A Novel Paperback – July 17, 2001

I saw the movie first and decided to read the book. As always the book in more in depth than the movie. I found this story interesting because the character Mona uses numbers to help her understand the world around her. This story drew you in because everyone is struggling to find their niche in life. So you can relate to how she overcomes her own diversities. She struggles with her father who was has an unknown illness which leaves him unable to bond with his daughter the way he use to. He was really into running when Mona was younger and her father and her could bond while running together. As she has grown up and moved out of the house she struggles with her relationship with her parents and her new job as a math teacher at an elementary school.

A facsinating read by a really talented writer. The way the story moves through the eccentric hallways of a math lover's mind. The flow is beautiful, symmetric and flavoured with sticky dark humour. This is the first of Aimee Bender which I read. Her other books are already in my reading list.

I suppose that it probably isn't hard to find readers more erudite than I who "got" what the book was all about. I certainly assume that the author was trying to tell us something or had some message for us, but for the life of me I couldn't discern it. I also assume that that with respect to the numerous little subplots--(1) Ann, (2) the ax, (3) Lisa, (4) Lisa's mother, (5) Mr. Jones, (6) his numbers, (6) Mona's father and his illness, (6) the science teacher and his classes, (7) the soap, (8) the knocking, (9) the math, etc., etc.--there must have been some theme or common link running through them, but I couldn't tell what it was. Death? Fear? Overcoming fear? If not connected, all we would have is a series of unrelated vignettes being told simultaneously, which I assume was not the author's intent. Finally, while I would not be surprised if many readers who adored the book told themselves (or people like me) that it was "obvious" to them what the themes were, I would be suspicious of that opinion unless those people all reached the same conclusion. After all, what good is it to say that the answer is "easy" or "obvious" when every person has a different answer?

I absolutely loved this book. It has so many layers, twists and turns and it will keep you anxiously wanting to know what will happen next. It is also brutally honest as it shows the main character's emotions larger than life. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a bit of absurdity combined with a close look at raw human emotions

Wonderful book of unusual people, who are drawn to each other due to their unusual interests. They catch your interest immediately, and keep it to the end of the book.

As someone who knocks on wood and has ocd i found this book to be look into my own mind. It was great and refreshing.

Aimee Bender is such a treat you guys.

I must admit, the setup that Aimee Bender constructs is fascinating: a girl in a claustrophobic town with a strangely beautiful glass hospital quits everything she adores until her routine is disrupted by the threat of her carefully sheltered world coming crashing down. However, the array of what start out as endearingly delicious quirks in Mona and the townspeople can't sustain themselves and become tiresome and forced by the end of the book. I simply could not find it within myself to care for the fates of any of the characters, whose actions and fates are all too trite and predictable. The most frustrating thing about this book is glimpsing the potential that it failed to live up to. The book seems to awkwardly straddle the line between the grippingly realistic and the delightfully dreamlike. It would have been effective either way, but in the middle ground it seemed to take, An Invisible Sign of My Own was dull and bizarre.One of the many plot weaknesses pertains to Mona's professed adour for math, which seems to supplemented by a knowledge nothing more complex than long division, despite a high school education. And the question of Mona's education leads to a entirely new debacle of how she is qualified to be any sort of teacher. This could very well be nitpicking, but Bender certainly doesn't seem to have done her research or have constructed a world convincingly magical enough for a reader to overlook illogical characterizations and plot twists. Mona herself comes off as irritating in her self-destructive self-pity rather than sympathetic. Her students are laughably (and not in a good way) precocious, wholly unrealistic without being interesting, and not at all endearing. Her love interest has little depth besides the plot device role he is assigned.I could not help thinking of the whole plot as a uncompelling and unskilled rehashing of Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, which I'd have gladly reread rather than waste my time on this one. This whole book reeks of trying too hard.

Such an unusual, reflective and sensitive book, with magical realist elements

After having put away "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" before reaching the end, I didn't know what to expect from "An Invisible Sign of My Own". Though too being a little depressing and involving events I won't even start to describe, I felt the urge to read further, hoping for a happy ending. You have to experience this book on your own.

An interesting read but if I had read it first I wouldn't have looked for other titles by this author and therefore would have missed out on the fascinating The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

excellent

I took a chance on this book as I really enjoyed "Lemon Cake", but I began to get the suspicion that I was going to dislike this one from the moment I started the book. Annoyingly "kooky" and centred on an irksome primary school teacher, the world in which the story is set resembles our own except for the laws of logic. I completely failed to see how anybody could possibly see this as an emotional or moving story as I felt nothing but vague dislike for almost everybody in it. There are moments when Bender's prose is lovely, but this only adds to the sense of disappointment.