Staff Pick
Sisters: this relationship is so very complicated — so fraught with missteps. Elf and Yoli are opposites, and while their bond is strong, it's not quite strong enough to keep Elf from continuously contemplating suicide. Yoli has tried everything to maintain the thin grasp she has on her sister. Somewhere along the way, Yoli realizes there is much she would do for Elf, even some things she never thought she could. This is a story of family dynamics, family dysfunction, and family love. Toews, an exceptional writer, bases the story on her own experiences with her sister, and she manages to truly capture this complicated relationship. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
MIRIAM TOEWS is the author of five previous bestselling novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness (Canada Reads 2006, Canada Reads Canadian Bestseller of the Decade 2010), The Flying Troutmans, Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is a winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. She lives in Toronto.