Books like a complicated kindness

A Complicated Kindness (2004) is the third novel by Canadian author Miriam Toews. The novel won a number of awards including the Governor General's Award for English Fiction, the CBA Libris Fiction Award, and CBC's Canada Reads.

The novel is set in a small religious Mennonite town called East Village, generally considered to be a fictionalized version of Toews' hometown of Steinbach, Manitoba. The narrator is Nomi Nickel, a curious, defiant, sardonic 16-year-old who dreams of hanging out with Lou Reed in the "real" East Village of New York City. She lives alone with her doleful father, Ray Nickel, who is a dutiful member of the town church. Nomi, on the other hand, is inquisitive by nature and her compulsive questioning brings her into conflict with the town's various authorities, most notably Hans Rosenfeldt, the sanctimonious church pastor.