Happy Hogmanay. I'll be honest: the last several years, my reading criteria has narrowed. Is it under 250 pages? Did someone I love recommend it? Life is too short to finish an underwhelming book. None of these underwhelmed me for one second. In no order (three are Canadian), I loved these books and these authors made me miss books, again. and I'm grateful for their lessons.
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| It will gut you. Like its comedian-actor-author, this memoir is painfully & proudly honest as well as ferociously funny. This is grief dialed up and it will heal people. |
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| In less than 250 pages, Toews thoughtfully presents us with a group of vulnerable Mennonite women & one man as they dissect the violence and ideology that minimizes and marginalizes them. In other words, it's a thoroughly modern and on-going story. |
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| Come for the truth & the reconciliation; stay for these characters' resilience, hope, and humour. |
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| These Canadian children and those who love them will break your heart. This Canadian novel should be the first read in a social work degree. |
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| I saw the film first. Cinematography at its finest. Written in 1967(!) For readers who love complex and broken characters in pain, and for those forced to live with their bullies or endure imagined bullies. |
