Your heart instantly goes out to 16-year old Nomi Nickel in A Complicated Kindness. She is heartbreakingly sad but also devastatingly funny. In her quest to get out of her stifling Mennonite town you truly want to reach out and help her at every turn.

Actually, I enjoyed the whole book! The humour is sharp, the sadness profound and the disintegration of a family is heart wrenching. It's a complicated life in a deceivingly simple town for Nomi Nickle, a girl struggling with the loss of her sister and mother to a faith and fate that she fears. Everyone (except perhaps Nomi's father, Ray and Nomi's sick friend Lids) is quick to pass judgement.

That Nomi survives this oppression at all is a triumph worth celebrating! She stumbles along the way and develops a wry and sarcastic sense of humour (I think) as a self-preservation mechanism. That her only remaining family member is her emotionally absent father who likes to clean the dump and get rid of their furniture is surely cause for concern! What teenager wouldn't feel compelled to drink, smoke and let loose with a wise-crack or two?

The comedic narrative of this novel is in complete contrast to the devastation of the family nucleus. It echoes like a plea and gives this novel a unique and haunting voice. I didn't like the ending but that was a plus in the case of, "A Complicated Kindness". Life, like this story, isn't always a fairytale. Things don't always work out the way we would like them to in the end.

Interesting but depressing story. Read it in small doses so that the sad, emptiness of the story would not have the same affect on me.

I generally love the "Heather's Picks" selections. I had high expectations for this book and was left dissapointed. I finished the story feeling like I had missed some important section, idea or message. I was left feeling like there was no resolution to the story and the charachters just hung in the air. I find it hard to believe this was a prize winner.