Very few people care – let alone have deep emotional feelings – about numbers. Author Aimee Bender is one of these few, and by the end of her book, “An Invisible Sign of My Own,” you might be, too.

Mona Gray is a 20-year-old, elementary-school math teacher whose world revolves around arithmetic and the convoluted simplicity she finds in numbers. She also has a penchant for incessantly knocking on wood and collecting strange novelty items like glistening axes.

The novel opens with her father telling 10-year-old Mona a bizarre tale. The story is set not far from Utopia, a kingdom of immortality with no “cemeteries, hospitals or funeral homes.” But the kingdom has become too crowded (a rather uncouth metaphor for today’s overpopulation), and families must offer one member each to be sacrificed. One of the families is unable to decide and instead offers a body part of each member. The story ignites in Mona a lifelong fascination with numbers (and axes).

Such compelling parallels between numbers and emotions are everywhere in “Invisible Sign.” One of Mona’s students is little Lisa Venus, a 7-year-old not like unlike the childhood Mona. When Lisa comes to class one day with a number zero made of the IV tube from her mother’s hospital room, Mona immediately connects with the child and the plight she is facing.

Mona’s neighbor, Mr. Jones, wears a large necklace featuring a number that indicates his mood (No. 2, the worst Mona has seen; No. 73, maximum joy). After an argument with Mona, when she spitefully denies ever having noticed his numbers, Mr. Jones goes back into his home and replaces his morose No. 3 with an unthinkably sad No. 1. This is when Mona truly realizes the impact of her comments.

Bender’s second novel is a bold effort. She manages to create sympathetic characters out of numbers-driven people – an admirable feat. But the plot is less than the sum of its parts. If success were measured numerically, Bender would score a seven out of 10.