She also has an eye for the absurd and a perfect tragicomedic timing in delivery.' Christian Century ' has a wry, funny voice that is the readers’ steady companion. Toews is an extraordinarily gifted writer, with unsentimental compassion for her people and an honest understanding of their past, the tectonic shifts of their present and variables of their future.” The Globe and Mail

'Touching and unexpectedly humorous.' Marie Claire 'A touching tribute and a captivating novel.' BUST 'Toews writes with a sharp and piercing eye, offering characters and descriptions which are so odd and yet so spot-on that the reader has to laugh, albeit reluctantly.' Booklist ' triumph in its depiction of the love the sisters share.' Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) She’s a smart aleck with heart, a philosopher with a comic’s timing.' The Dallas Morning News Toews writes from the point of view of Yoli, whose interior monologue reads like a cross between David Foster Wallace and Robin Williams if both were, in fact, a 40-something Mennonite woman with authority issues. ' masterful, original investigation into love, loss and survival.' Kirkus (Starred) 'Toews is a writer of considerable subtlety and grace, with a gift for bringing flashes of lightness, even humor, to the darkest of tales.' - The Millions 'In the crucible of genius, tears and laughter are ground into some magical elixir that seems like the essence of life.' Ron Charles, The Washington Post 'Irresistible its intelligence, its honesty and, above all, its compassion provide a kind of existential balm a comfort not unlike the sort you might find by opening a bottle of wine and having a long conversation with (yes, really) a true friend.” Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times That novel is totally unafraid of the dark wilderness of the mind and heart seeing as it’s a novel largely preoccupied with suicide and it also somehow manages to be really funny. 'I read 'All My Puny Sorrows' very recently and fell in love with Miriam Toews’ work. Included in the New Republic's Best Fiction of 2014 A Boston Globe 'Best Fiction of 2014' PickĪ New York Times Editors' Choice pick for the week of November 26, 2014.

My puny sorrows book