In Code by Sarah Flannery

This book, which details an Irish teenager's excursions in mathematics and how they culminated in her winning a number of prestigious science awards, was a ridiculously hard read.

The first time I tried to read it, when I was about 14 [right after she had visited New Zealand and I'd been to see her speak at Victoria University], it was a hard read because the first part of the book is full of puzzles. At the time I thought these puzzles were obscenely difficult, and I got discouraged and put the book aside.

My second attempt, which commenced a few months ago, was more successful but ultimately no less trying. This time I enjoyed the puzzles. Solving them, I could feel myself using parts of my brain that hadn't existed when I was 14. The feeling pleased me and I kept reading.

The middle sections of the book were rather wearisome, as they described in great detail some mathematical ideas which I'd just completed a course in. I found it all a bit slow and tried to skim over the duller parts, but I kept wanting to look at it all in detail, so it still took me ages to get through those chapters.

The last part was where it got really depressing. I had immense trouble reading Ms Flannery's descriptions of her creation of a new cryptography algorithm and the subsequent accolades. This part was hard because I was battling the most crippling jealousy for much of the closing chapters. I'm not talking about her awards - I wasn't all that interested in the awards, and clearly, by the way she glossed over them, she wasn't either. No, I was insanely, horribly jealous of her having had the opportunity at such a young age to learn such wonderful mathematics. Most of it is stuff that I'll never encounter in my formal studies, because it's at grad level. And even with her opportunities, I doubt that I would have had the brain space available for such knowledge when I was sixteen. All of this sends me into a state of despair, from which frame of mind it was a little difficult to concentrate on understanding the Euler-Fermat theorem.

I can finally claim to have read it, but other than another one ticked off the list, I'm no happier for the experience. It's just more salt in the I know I'll never be a mathematician wound.