Stuck

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, amusingly was translated as "Ein komplizierter Akt der Liebe." This is a direct translation, but has a very different connotation. "Akt" can mean a pornographic picture, so the German title leads one to believe that perhaps a complicated sexual act of love is the topic of this book. This is quite misleading though, as the novel is a bildungsroman about a teenage girl living in a Mennonite community in Canada.

Nomi, the narrator, lives with her father, as her mother and older sister have both left home. Their disappearance focuses the story as Nomi tries to work out where and why they left. Normal life unravels for Nomi as her father gradually sells all the household furniture. Speaking to the guidance counsellor about future aspirations Nomi says she wants to become a city planner. To explain why she says: "That our main street has two dirt fields on either end of it is weird to me. Shouldn't it lead somewhere?" The guidance counsellor suggests that she needs both math and engineering skills rather than responding to the problem which Nomi has pointed out - that their is no way out of the town, figuratively. There is nothing to which the school or work within the town can lead to. Unsurprisingly, Nomi gradually stops going to school.

This book is quite interesting as it deals with reality in ways that books about teenagers don't generally. It won the Governer General's Literary award and Canada Reads 2006.