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    A Complicated Kindness
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    A Complicated Kindness
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    A Complicated Kindness
    Audiobook9 hours

    A Complicated Kindness

    Written by Miriam Toews

    Narrated by Erin Moon

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Award-winning author Miriam Toews is known for her razor-sharp wit. In A Complicated Kindness, Mennonite Nomi Nichol belongs to “the most embarrassing subsect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager.” Her mother and sister have already fled their fundamentalist community in Manitoba. Now Nomi, fighting off despair, tries to find herself while hiding behind a facade of biting humor.

    “… maintains a careful balance between hilarity and heartbreak that most readers will find unforgettable.”—Booklist, starred review
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9781449814328
    Unavailable
    A Complicated Kindness
    Author

    Miriam Toews

    Miriam Toews is the author of the bestselling novels All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, Irma Voth, Fight Night, and one work of nonfiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award. She lives in Toronto.

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    Reviews for A Complicated Kindness

    3.5/5

    633 ratings36 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I read this for the Canadian Author Challenge in 2016. It's a grand picture of a young girl's life, in a Mennonite town in Manitoba in the 1970's. Although there are many lifestyle restrictions, and the possibility of excommunication (shunning) always exists, it often feels as though this story could be about any young girl raised in any conventionally religious family--not terribly different from my own American Baptist cousins growing up at about the same time. I knew so many people whose religion dictated their dress, or activities, or food choices that I was always fairly comfortable with my simple Methodist upbringing that seemed to only forbid things that were actually against the law. Nomi Nickel, like any normal teenager, rebels against the rules and authority, yet loves her fractured family and wants to impress her English teacher even while she seems to be neglecting the writing project he has set for her. There is a bit of a mystery and a "shocker" at the end that I didn't see coming and wasn't particularly shocked by. There's an interesting exploration of love and sacrifice here as well.
    • 1/5
      Well, I'm not sure what all the hype over this book is about but I have to say I was disappointed. I felt no real connection to Nomi and her disjointed ramblings and and I was left frustrated by the sheer quantity of unanswered questions. What was her dad thinking, leaving this girl after her being abandoned by her mother and sister already?
      Thankfully it was a quick read because I wouldn't have wanted to waste any more time on this one.
    • 4/5
      Lovely. Heartbreaking.
    • 4/5
      A beautifully-written, hilarious book about loss -- loss of family, community, faith, and your sense of stability in the world.
    • 4/5
      Excellent writing! Intelligent, not overly narrative, witty dialogue, poignant and quotable -- half the book is truism that can be posted on a wall.
      Worthy of its awards.
    • 4/5
      Like Mrs. Klippenstein's husband, this book is almost perfect. I loved every page.
    • 2/5
      I'm halfway through this and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. There's not much I'd call a plot, besides Mennonite girl coming of age, but even that's a bit of a stretch. The narrator (Nomi) is mostly recalling things that happened at some vague time in her past; the chronology is difficult (at best) to follow, and the voice (to me) is just blah. I wanted to like this, but I just couldn't.
    • 3/5
      I feel bad for Miriam Toews. She does not seem to be proud of her Mennonite Heritage. A lot of sarcasm and bitterness comes through in her book.
    • 5/5
      The cracking of my heart seems to be happening all too frequently when I read these days. I would make an effort to avoid the damage (my heart is beginning to look like a crumpled piece of paper left out in the rain) but the unlikeliest books keep scrunching it up in their cardboard fists. A Complicated Kindness did this for me. If you haven't already read it (I think I might be the only one my age who hadn't) it is told through the witty/despairing/smart voice of sixteen year old Nomi Nickels. She lives with her father in the Mennonite community of East Village, Manitoba after Nomi's mom and her sister skipped town. Nomi tries to deal with the loss, as well as her own crumbling religious faith and her emotionally distant and distracted father in the months that follow. I don't know why exactly this book spoke to me- perhaps it was the strong-willed, yet hopelessly lost voice of Nomi. Perhaps it was because she listened to Keith Jarret (the Koln concert of course) on her record player just like I did when I was a teenager and she loved how he made noises when he played, just like I did. Mostly I think I loved Nomi because she is one of the undisputed heirs of Holden Caulfield: just as perceptive and smart with observations about the world that break your heart to make it bigger. And she is just as screwed up by the hyprocrisy of the world she lives in and the loss of everything she holds dear. Just like Mr. Caulfield. Yeah. That was what got me.
    • 4/5
      I found this book an interesting read with a unique perspective on a sub culture that doesn't really exist in Australia. Not a fan of religion at the best of times i liked that the character struggled so honestly with the issues she was faced with and the ambivelance she feels.
    • 5/5
      The narrator of this story is 16 year old Naomi 'Nomi" Nickel, a high school senior struggling to grow up, understand life and what it all means in the small, dead-end southern Manitoba Mennonite community of East Village. You see, East Village and its residents live a strained, conflicted life. On one hand, they are proud of their Mennonite ways, to the point of suffocation and contradiction of what is and is not allowed in from the world surrounding them, while on the other hand, maintain a fully operational museum/"theme park" of their Mennonite heritage for the droves of American tourists coming up to witness this 'quaint, simple life", even if it is completely contrived. Lets be honest. How do you promote a clean, pious background when the town's teenage population appears to be running wild, doing drugs, consuming alcohol and just have dreams of being anywhere but here and the adults are struggling with what appears to be their own internal conflicts and demons?The book focuses on Nomi's cynical, sarcastic view of her world, a world her older sister Tash abruptly left one day, three years previously, in a van with her boyfriend. Nomi's mom Trudie made a similar vanishing act months later, leaving 13 year old Nomi and her father Ray to, basically, limp along as best they can. While the members of the community and the school system see signs of a problem, their advice, limited and useless at best, only leads to further displays of outward frustration and rebellion by the troubled teen as she struggles to make sense of what has happened to her family and what the future has in store for her.I did enjoy this story. Yes, there is a lot of anger, frustration, rebellion and abject complacency displayed by the various characters that could turn people off this one. As well there should be. I would find it suffocating to grow up in a community where my only career goal, if I was to remain there after graduation, was to strive for a job at Happy Family Farms, the local abattoir, chopping the head off of chickens for nine hours a day. Forget moving to the city and coming back to visit, because coming back, or maintaining any ties with the community, including your family, isn't exactly an option. Toews, who also comes from a Mennonite family background, gives Nomi a humorous yet heartbreaking voice.Toews is good at presenting damaged souls in her stories. Damaged souls that have the strength to preserver, if precariously, in their search for the light and their way forward through the gloom that surrounds them. This is a story that I do recommend.
    • 5/5
      This book cheered me up and made me laugh during a time in my life when the last thing I felt like was laughing. In between the funny bits are some deep and insighful observations (sometimes the two go together) about life and religion.Although I felt that the story itself was't as strong as it could have been, I still give this 5 stars because I loved the way Miriam Toews tells a story.This was the first book I read by her and I plan to read more.
    • 4/5
      Nomi Nickel feels trapped in her small, Mennonite Manitoba town. East Village, Manitoba, combines strict religiosity with all of the career opportunities inherent in a chicken-rendering plant, and has brought nothing but strife to Nomi and her family. At the book's start Nomi's mother and sister have already run off, escaping the strictures of East Village. Nomi spends much of her time dreaming about reuniting with her mother and sister, reminiscing about the past, and trying to escape the strictures of East Village. Toewes does a brilliant job of narrating as Nomi, a troubled teenager. Much of Nomi's resistence seems to come from her perverse sense of humor, which sometimes distracts the reader from just how tragic her situation is. Nomi's is a world with few opportunities and no real solutions, and the novel is certainly a cautionary statement on the dangers of ideology without thought.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book. An intelligent young woman grows up in a small, close minded Mennonite community in southern Manitoba. The paranoia and religious hatred are exposed in a devastatingly funny story that, at heart, is achingly sad. While a replica pioneer village draws American tourists, most young people face a future working at the local chicken abbattoir. Nomi Nickel tells her story with grit and humour but there is a terrible grief underlying her banter, the disappearance of her sister and mother. Both had been shunned by the community. The cruelty, misogny, and superstition of religious fundementalism is searingly exposed in this wonderful book.Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      I never really believed in the main character, so I didn't enjoy this story of family destruction in a small Mennonite town.
    • 5/5
      I always fall in love with Toews's characters, in this case it's Nomi, a rebellious Mennonite teenager with a dry sense of humor whose family and home furnishings keep disappearing. Nomi lives in the "world's most non-progressive community", East Village, a small deeply religious town in Canada that practices shunning and attracts tourists from around the world who want to witness the simple life first hand, but Nomi's fantasy is to hang out in Greenwich Village with Lou Reed.I read this as slowly as I could--I didn't want it to end.
    • 3/5
      This was an unusual book. The writing is very disjointed and jumps around a lot in time, but it fits since it's the scattered narration of a very confused and lost 16 year old. I'm not sure how accurate this portrayal of a Mennonite child is, but Nomi's world is very sad and lonely. I enjoyed the tenderness she shows her father, who is just as sad and lonely as she is. The ending offers a little explanation, but there is still a lot left to the unknown.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book, though it was not at all what I expected. I'd thought that the book would have more focus on the Mennonite church and its practices, but instead the book was one of the more wonderful character-driven novels I've read. The book fell apart in the final chapter, but I'm willing to forgive the author not knowing how to end because the rest fo the book was such a delight to read. The book captures the experience of faith followed by questioning in a way that was startling and unusual. The setting of the book -- in a rural Mennonite community in Canada -- managed to work brilliantly.
    • 2/5
      This book was aclaimed in Canada, very favorably reviewed in national papers and was described as "humorous". The book was readable but not very remarkable. It certainly wasn't humorous. Sort of sad, but not humorous.
    • 5/5
      A very intersting read that I couldn't put down. Nomi's voice is complicaed yet clear at the same time. Her feeling of isolation is very reminiscent of Holden Caulfield but her devotion to her father and belief that her family will have a happy ending gives her an anchor. Nomi feels like a real teenager in the fact that she is not hyper-selfaware like teens on TV and movies, but not like many teenagers acts, on intstinct and emotions not really being able to express the why of her actions that adults desire to have explained. For me, I'll carry away from the book is the unconditional love she has for her family, which is touching and sad.
    • 2/5
      you know, it's really too bad that rohinton mistry won the governer general's award for a fine balance a few years back because now i expect every gg winner to be that good, which is why i picked up this book. having said this, a complicated kindness is a somewhat enjoyable read about a young woman marooned in mennonite town in manitoba while her family disappears, one by one, from around her. no doubt, this book stands in the canadian tradition of flat external landscapes with which tumultous internal landscapes are contrasted - and in this case the land is wide open while the characters are constrained by their religion, their community and their pasts. also like a lot of canadian fiction is a distance in the writing that makes one feel as though youa re viewing the scene from afar, which is not really the relationship i want with a story. in the end, i'm not so interested in her main character, but much more those who have disappeared, particularly the father who is quirky in a sad and interesting way. i wouldn't buy this book again, but i would take it out of the library.
    • 5/5
      she is brilliant
    • 4/5
      If 3.5 stars were an option...but I'll error on the side of generosity. I know something of the world Toews describes. I found it entertaining and rewarding. I did grow tired of it about 2/3 of the way through. I felt like telling the author, "ok, I've got it. Move on." For all it's very interesting look into Nomi's teenage mind, somehow it lacked some depth. Even stoned and confused, I suspect more would be going on inside.
    • 5/5
      Reminiscent of Cathcer in the Rye, we get to know a young Mennonite teen who is straining at the confines of her community. Her mother and sister have mysteriuosly disspaeared, her father id not functioning and her hormiones are racing. I quickly fell in love with this strong, confused gril, who reminds me of the girl in the movie "Juno".
    • 2/5
      Huge disappointment! Adored Toews' biography of her father (a suicide), but this book got out of contol, became boring, static, unfocussed & ending in a rather cheap (shortcut) route to produce tears [which it did in this reader]. Yes we all must "reframe" things in our own unique way to preserve what we have found brings love to our hearts. This was not the best-written novel coming to this conclusion.
    • 4/5
      From the publisher: "Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City’s East Village. Instead she’s trapped in East Village, Manitoba, a small town whose population is Mennonite: “the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager.” East Village is a town with no train and no bar whose job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir or churning butter for tourists at the pioneer village. Ministered with an iron fist by Nomi’s uncle Hans, a.k.a. The Mouth of Darkness, East Village is a town that’s tall on rules and short on fun: no dancing, drinking, rock ’n’ roll, recreational sex, swimming, make-up, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities or staying up past nine o’clock.As the novel begins, Nomi struggles to cope with the back-to-back departures three years earlier of Tash, her beautiful and mouthy sister, and Trudie, her warm and spirited mother. She lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher whose love is unconditional but whose parenting skills amount to benign neglect. Father and daughter deal with their losses in very different ways. Ray, a committed elder of the church, seeks to create an artificial sense of order by reorganizing the city dump late at night. Nomi, on the other hand, favours chaos as she tries to blunt her pain through “drugs and imagination.” Together they live in a limbo of unanswered questions."Toew's is a writer of considerable gifts and her ability to create Nomi’s voice is impressive. She's funny, bitter, terrified (but not about to admit it), proud, sardonic, kind.... in other words, a complete person. It's hard to believe, in fact, she's fictional. The narrative shifts between the present and past, but is never difficult to follow. The lure of the narrative thread is why did her mother and sister leave... and what will happen to Nomi and her father now? The book is often laugh-out-loud funny, even though deadly serious. It takes real talent to be able to do that. The pacing is deceptive, and those looking for a rollicking plot-driven novel will be disappointed, but anyone truly interested in the human condition, the power of religion, as well as the resilience of the human heart will be rewarded not only by the depth of the novel, but by the frequent belly-laughs. A quote form the book:This town is so severe. And silent. It makes me crazy, the silence. I wonder if a person can die from it. The town office building has a giant filing cabinet full of death certificates that say choked to death on his own anger or suffocated from unexpressed feelings of unhappiness. Silentium. People here just can’t wait to die, it seems. It’s the main event. The only reason we’re not all snuffed at birth is because that would reduce our suffering by a lifetime. My guidance counsellor has suggested to me that I change my attitude about this place and learn to love it. But I do, I told her. Oh, that’s rich, she said. That’s rich. . .We’re Mennonites. After Dukhobors who show up naked in court we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager. Five hundred years ago in Europe a man named Menno Simons set off to do his own peculiar religious thing and he and his followers were beaten up and killed or forced to conform all over Holland, Poland, and Russia until they, at least some of them, finally landed right here where I sit. Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking , temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock’n’roll, having sex for fun, swimming, makeup, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities, or staying up past nine o’clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Menno.—from A Complicated Kindness
    • 5/5
      Nomi Nickel's soliloquy about her life in a Mennonite community shows a combination of innocence and gullibility along with wisdom and awareness that makes her believable. Toews speaks with a personal knowledge of life in a Mennonite community and Nomi is the perfect person to tell the story. She rebels against the absurdities uttered by church elders and her school principal yet the tourists who come to stare at the quaint village are no more reasonable. With limited exposure to outside influences, these people form the extent of Nomi's worldly knowledge. No wonder she is confused and cynical. Toews' characters are all well-drawn but Nomi is a masterpiece of humour and heartache. She will remain in my thoughts for a long time.
    • 3/5
      After loving Swing Low, this book was disappointing. The writing just didn't have the same smoothness, oomph or depth, some sentences didn't seem like complete sentences. It felt like the author was trying to be abstract in lots of ways just left me feeling confused.
    • 3/5
      A Complicated Kindness is a coming of age story. The main character Nomi Nickels is a sixteen year old girl growing up in a strict Mennonite community where, like most teenagers, she feels alienated and alone. The book is an interesting window in the life of a girl who is funny and terribly sad. Toews does an excellent job maintaining Nomi's unique voice and perspective throughout the story. Sometimes it did get to be a little too much for me though. At times it was difficult for me to sympathize with Nomi because I felt like the narrative remained angst filled and annoying. I didn't feel like Toews showed much of the beauty that this girl might have inside. I enjoyed the exploration of religious restrictions. I know nothing about Mennonites, so reading a story that takes place in a Mennonite community was fascinating to me. I, of course, will take all of what I read with a grain of salt because I have no idea what the author's biases are toward or against Mennonites. I find it difficult to believe Nomi could get away as long as she did with behaving that way. I just wonder about the authenticity. It doesn't ring true to me, but I don't really know. Nomi lives with her father, Ray. Her mother Trudie and sister Tash have both left the community. Slowly as the book unfolds you find out why. The narrative style seemed too distant at times, but there were some beautifully written passages that kept me reading. I ended up enjoying the book, but I gave it three stars because if I wasn't reading it for a book club I don't think I would've bothered finishing it.
    • 5/5
      Nomi Nickel is a sixteen year rebel recovering from the religious indoctrination of "The Mouth," the preacher in her small Mennonite community. Against the backdrop of a future snapping the heads of chickens at the local slaughterhouse, Nomi explores her family life and future in this fictional memoir.Over the course of the book, you learn why her mother Trudy and sister Tash are missing. If there's a plot, it's the mystery of Nomi's broken family.The best element of this book is Nomi's dark and ironic sense of humour. I found myself giggling more than once while reading. Take this reflection on her Mennonite heritage, for example:"Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking, temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock 'n' roll, having sex for fun, swimming, makeup, jewelry, playing pool, going to cities, or staying up past nine o'clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Menno."Don't read this book for a plot—it drifts back and forth in history as Nomi reflects on the events that formed her character. In the end, the book's resolution came as a surprise—I had to reread the page to make sure I followed what was happening.A Complicated Kindness is a dark and funny reflection on small town religiosity and its consequences.