A Complicated Kindness
Ratings16
Average rating3.8
A work of fierce originality and brilliance, Miriam Toews' novel explores the ties that bind families together and the forces that tear them apart. It is the world according to Nomi Nickel, a heartbreakingly bewildered and wry young woman trapped in a small Mennonite town that seeks to set her on the path to righteousness and smother her at the same time.'Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing,' Nomi tells us at the beginning of A Complicated Kindness. Left alone with her father Ray, her days are spent piecing together the reasons her mother Trudie and her sister Tash have gone missing, and trying to figure out what she can do to avoid a career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken abattoir on the outskirts of East Village - not the neighbourhood in Manhattan where Nomi most wants to live but the small town in southern Manitoba. East Village is ministered by Hans, Nomi's pious uncle, otherwise known as The Mouth.As Nomi gets to the bottom of the truth behind her mother's and sister's disappearances, she finds herself on a direct collision course with her uncle and the only community she has ever known. In this funny, compassionate and moving novel, Miriam Toews has created a character who will stay in the hearts of readers long after they've put the book down.
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This book is a 4.8/ 5 stars for me. I feel conflicted about the star rating in this novel in a similar way to I do about the book love in the time of cholera and I believe deep down they are both 5 star reads for me as they both burrowed themselves inside my consciousness long after reading them. This book I haven't stopped thinking about since the last page. The story is beautifully written and not in a cliche way. Every word has been sculpted into poetry. It's such a pleasure to read. It certainly takes inspiration for the main protagonist Nomi from Holden Caulfield. Nomi's story is a coming of age story in a bleak background of a Mennonite community in Manitoba. Similar to an Amish upbringing nomi has to live in a isolated community with little prospects outside of the confines of their settlement where the fear of hell is drilled into every citizen. Before the book starts we find out that nomis mother and sister have left the community and we slowly learn it's because there inability to conform to the harsh religious rhetoric of the community leads to their excommunication. Nomi's story is heartbreaking and sad but the tale of sacrifice at the end had me reeling. This books melancholiac tone moved me deeply and nomi is a character I always felt for and cannot get out of my head. A stunningly sad yet breathtakingly beautiful story. A small book that packs an emotional punch. The bittersweet ambiguity of the ending leaves you connected irrevocably to the characters of nomi, her father and the rest of the nickel family and leaves you lost for words. I highly recommend this novel to fans of Catcher in the Rye. It has similar themes and a similar tone but personally I felt this book provided a much more tragic and heartfelt story. One I was certainly more invested in! I loved this novel and I highly recommend you give it a go!
