lakmus 's review for:

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
DID NOT FINISH

Unfinished, p.50.

It started out spunky, but then it turned to detail after detail of life in the Mennonite town – which turned out to be weirdly similar to how Russian reflective 'chernuha' movies document the dreariness and stuffiness of provincial Russia, and I cannot make myself consume any more of that, despite the obvious value of the exercise to the author and some readers. The cultural decoration is different, but the dull bittersweet toska spiced up by edgy humor is the same and just no.