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    Irma Voth
    Irma Voth
    Irma Voth
    Audiobook7 hours

    Irma Voth

    Written by Miriam Toews

    Narrated by Erin Moon

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A treasure of Canadian letters, Miriam Toews has earned numerous awards. With Irma Voth, Toews delivers a witty novel of great humanity and emotional poignancy. Cast from her Mennonite family for marrying a Mexican man she barely knows, 19-year-old Irma finds herself in an untenable situation. But when a film crew arrives to document her insular community, Irma begins a remarkable journey to redemption and discovering all she may become.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 1, 2016
    ISBN9781501931031
    Irma Voth
    Author

    Miriam Toews

    Miriam Toews is the author of the bestselling novels All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, Irma Voth, Fight Night, and one work of nonfiction, Swing Low: A Life. She is winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award. She lives in Toronto.

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    Reviews for Irma Voth

    3.5/5

    157 ratings29 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I liked that it made me want to slap Addy numerous times!
    • 4/5
      I bought this because it was inspired by Carlos Reygadas’s Stellet Licht, which is set in a Mennonite community in Mexico. Toews plays a wife whose husband is having an affair with a younger woman. Toews used the experience of working on the film as a plot for a novel about a young woman who is hired to translate Mennonite Plattdeutsch for a critically-acclaimed Mexican director who is making a film in the Mennonite community. The title character and narrator of Irma Voth has been thrown out of her home after marrying a young Mexican man, and is living in a neighbouring house owned by her father. The film crew live in a third house owned by the father. Irma has a younger sister who still lives with their father, but wants to leave. The movie gets made, although it’s a somewhat chaotic production, and Irma and her sister end up running away to a nearby city. They live rough for a while, but then Irma gets a job as housemaid at a B&B, and the two settle down to a life free from their family and community. However, the real draw of Irma Voth is the prose, which is written in first person, without speech marks. This is the proper way to do a first-person narrative. It’s all about the world-view, it’s about filtering events through the narrator’s personality; and not the cheap and easy story-telling far too many first-person narratives prove to be. The movie described in Irma Voth doesn’t actually map onto Stellet Licht – and I would hope Toews’s director is not a true depiction of Reygadas. I will be watching more films by Reygadas, and I will be reading more books by Toews.
    • 4/5
      Though I did not love it as much as "A Complicated Kindness", this was a great read, with the strange juxtaposition of the Mennonite family living an 1800's lifestyle in the present time. When Irma rebels, her father's vengeance is frightening, but as sheltered and confused as she is she digs up strength and resilience and saves herself and her sisters.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book although not as much as other Toews' works. She has a very distinctive style of narration which mostly works well for me but which I occasionally find confusing. I found that the story finished in a slightly unclear way and perhaps a little abruptly, but I accept that this is part of the point of the story. As always in Toews' work there seems to be a strong element of father-daughter relationship, and I assume this to be due to the powerful impact Toews' own father had on her. I'm interested in this, and so my next Toews book with be her memoir of her father.
    • 4/5
      It’s my year of reading female presenting writers, and Miriam Toews is quickly becoming a favorite. This is my second Toews book, and, like the first, All My Puny Sorrows, stays close to her own experience of growing up in a small Mennonite town. The main characters share her Mennonite roots and are struggling to cope with the big problems that exist whether or not your community chooses to try to shut out the world. The protagonists in these novels have few tools at their disposal to address these problems other than their determination, desire, and resiliency.The family patriarch has cast out the heroine, Irma, because she eloped with a Mexican. As the story unfolds, she bumbles towards freedom and a perceived better life with her sisters. Only at the end do we start to understand the reasons for so much of what happens to her.Toews creates wonderfully flawed characters that I can’t help but like even as they fumble from one catastrophe to the next. The dialogue between Irma and her sister Aggie frequently had me laughing out loud even as I recognized the stubborn sibling interactions that careen between wanting to be close and wanting nothing to do with each other. I will definitely be seeking out more of Toews books in the future. Up next, probably either A Complicated Kindness or The Flying Troutmans.Thanks to Powell’s Books Indiespensable Subscription Club for turning me on to this book.
    • 1/5
      though i value finding the familiarity of the setting, as it is part of my family history, i am struggling with the language. continual swears become repetitive and an infection i know i'm capable of preventing. not sure if the story is worth the struggle. at this point reconsidering the read...
      now done .
    • 1/5
      I really wanted to like this one. I truly did. The description of this novel, by new-to-me author Miriam Toews, sounded so different than anything else I'd read and seemed very intriguing.

      Irma Voth is 19, married, and living in a Mennonite community in Mexico. With the exception of her younger sister, Irma is pretty much estranged from her family. A filmmaker arrives in town to make a documentary and hires Irma as a translator. Irma befriends Marijke, an actress in the film and ...well, that would be as far as I got with this one.

      I can't really point to one specific element of this story that made me give up after 54 pages. My two main issues were that the plot seemed to be all over the place, kind of disjointed and unstructured. Also, as much as I tried, I didn't feel connected to any of the characters. Both of these were factors in making me lose interest.

      Normally I don't have any problem abandoning books that aren't working for me, but I did with this one because I was reading it as part of a TLC Book Tour. I don't do many book tours - and maybe I shouldn't do any, period, because this is now the second toured book that I didn't quite enjoy. It left me in a conundrum about what to do about the review, but after talking to the ever-so-gracious-and-understanding Trish, I decided to treat this one like any other DNF and just be honest.

      Bottom line? This one just didn't work for me. However, I'm planning to donate this ARC to my local library in hopes that Irma Voth will find a reader or two who will fall deeply in love with all that she has to offer.
    • 4/5
      Miriam Toews quirky style of writing takes some getting used to. She is absolutely brilliant at using dialogue to define her characters and to move the plot along. A fascinating, darkly told story!
    • 3/5
      I was rather disappointed by this novel. It sounded like an interesting story, but really didn't live up to my expectations. I found it hard to really get into it, it never really spoke to me.One of the things that I foud disappointing was the fact that the lives and ideas of the mennonite community really aren't given any consideration, Toews stays on the surface without really going into what their culture and religion really mean. It leaves us with a view of people wearing old-fashioned clothes and abusive patriarchs without ever touching upon the reasons behind this lifestyle, and without trying to understand this community. It gives you the feeling of really being an outsider, which I guess might be intentional, but for me it just meant that I didn't really feel connected to the people in the novel.I think it would have been much more interesting if Toews would have given a more indepth view, if she would have made us more familiar with this culture.All in all I think the story has potential, and the setting and plot are interesting, but Toews fails to work it out and fails to really speak to me.
    • 4/5
      The tone is subtle and quiet, but the themes are strong : culture, family, religion, freedom - how do we reconcile all these elements that are intrinsic to our identities and sense of belonging when they clash and compete? Toews tries to answer these questions through the courageous quest of Irma, quiet rebel drawn out of the family circle and religious certainties into love's drama and heady independence, challenging her role as a woman and as a daughter.I loved the desert scenes, the craziness of the movie filming, the genuine kindness of the taxi driver and the innkeeper, Julius's Voth's stern madness, Jorge's youthful misguidance - there are so many little story lines, carefully intertwined - nothing seems like much, yet everything conspires to bring Irma full circle into a place of welcome and maturity.
    • 4/5
      I love the way this book starts: 19 year old Irma Voth's husband is leaving her. The first section is so packed with emotion and so real that I read it twice and contemplated reading it a third time. Irma is a mennonite woman, who marries a Mexican drug dealer. She is shunned by her family. Left on her own, wondering where her life will go, she begins working with a film crew who has arrived to make a movie from the house next door.Irma's story is about families and family loyalties. It is about how you sometimes have to break free from your past in order to find your way back to the people you love. It's about our need to forgive those we love.Dark and heavy themes -- but told through the characters of Irma, her sister Aggie and the film crew, Ms. Toews gives it a light touch, showing both the humour in difficult situations and the difficulty that remains even in the good times. This is my third book by Ms. Toews and, in my opinion, the best yet.
    • 3/5
      I always want to like Toews's books more than I do. The plots always sound so interesting, but then I try and read them and am completely disinterested. That was the case again for Irma Voth. The plot sounds imaginative and compelling. Nineteen-year-old Irma lives in Mexico with her Canadian Mennonite family. She has been shunned by her father for marrying a Mexican man, who has since fled the scene. When a documentary filmmaker arrives in the community Irma gets a job as a translator, and her work allows her to make plans to break free from her highly restrictive family. Undeniably the best part of the book is Irma's flight to freedom. Her exodus with her sisters reveals some deeply held and damning family secrets. The early part of the book, when Irma is working on the movie, is comparatively dull. One would think that conflict between some angry sectarians and famous filmmakers would be interesting, but somehow it manages to be extraordinarily dull. Toews describes every little quotidian event in Irma's world in minute detail. There's description of dialogue that simply couldn't keep my attention. The payoff is in the second half of the book, so if the reader can last through the first part they'll probably find the second easier going. That said, I keep having this experience with Towes's books. We'll see if I've learned my lesson.
    • 5/5
      It only took a few pages for me to be completely hooked by this compelling novel- the spare prose and complicated characters make for a wonderful read. The story is told from the point of view of Irma, a 19 year old Mennonite girl in Mexico haunted by family secrets and the decisions she has made in life. When a strange film crew shows up to make a movie about her community, Irma is catapaulted into a new reality, one where she has new choices to make which have far-reaching consequences.Watching Irma's torment as she tries to come to terms with her relationships with family and with God, I was unable to put this book down. The writing is bare bones which is disconcerting at first but quickly come to highlight the spare lifestyle Irma lives within the confines of her community. As the story of her past unfolds, it is impossible not to feel for Irma as she tries to correct her mistakes. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      "Irma Voth" is a "coming of age story" about a teenage girl with that name. Her family are Mennonites who lived in Canada but then went to Mexico in their continuing search of land where they will be left alone by the government. She has been shunned by her family for marrying a Mexican and then her husband leaves her. Women don't do well in her family so she ends leaving her family with a younger teenage sister and an infant sister that her Mother gives to her.The book is about her adventures as she finds her way in the world and encounters with others. Besides that the book is about escaping an old life and finding a new life and what that costs her and in a twist what her quest for independence cost others. It is about deep secrets and the costs of those secrets. I found the book amazing. It is 250 pages and I'm not a particularly fast reader but I zipped through in about three hours. It's one of those rare books where the story is so compelling and the writing is so smooth that one loses the sensation of reading.Besides being a great story the book presents Mennonites as three dimensional real people and not idealized concepts as portrayed so many times in movies and television.I give the book five stars out of five. I got my copy at the library. I recommend that you do the same.
    • 2/5
      At one level I understand, somewhat, where Miriam Toews was intending to go with Irma Voth but I was unable to connect on any sort of emotional level with Irma.I should have been able to connect though, and that’s what is bugging me about this book. Because, in its own stream of consciousness way, it was fairly easy to follow and to get caught up in the daily happenings in Irma’s life. There were quirky characters, strange occurrences and even with the abundance of life in this book I just could not connect.Instead, I ended up feeling empty, sad, filled with despair and lost hope. I think that definitely was not intended, but it is what I took from the story. The lack of family for Irma, the silly decisions made by Aggie, her sister, the neglect of Irma’s husband – it all just added up to a life that hardly seemed living on Irma’s behalf. Once that conclusion was reached, it was really hard to shake.Perhaps I’ll feel differently about the book once I read Swing Low, Miriam Toews memoir – maybe I’ll see a bit of her that will shed some light on the story. I certainly hope so.
    • 3/5
      Raised in Canada, Irma Voth followed along placidly when her father packed the family up and moved to northern Mexico. After all, father was the leader and no one questioned his ways. If you were a boy in the Voth family, work was hard and watching the way father treated your sisters was harder. For some reason, Mr. Voth didn’t like women. His two daughters, Irma and Aggie could do nothing to please him.Which is probably why, when she snuck off to the rodeo, Irma fell for the first boy who was nice to her. Jorge. Two strikes already: Jorge was not Mennonite and he was Mexican. He also dealt drugs out of the shed by the house Irma’s father let them live in until he took off one day and didn’t come back.A film crew arrives in the town to film a vision of a Mennonite family moving to Mexico. Mr. Voth prohibits all the group from helping them but some do. Irma being one of them because she can translate Low German, Spanish and English. Being shunned by the religious, Irma is lonely and her little sister wants only to come live with Irma – despite the fact there is no power and no food. Trouble arises with the film crew and Irma and Aggie go to tell their mother goodbye as they cannot come home. Mrs. Voth gives them her newborn daughter to take along as father will not love her, either.Irma Voth is a tale of growing up, religious belief, cruelty and love. If Irma can endure the prior she may end up with the last, or she may live alone in the upstairs of a bed and breakfast forever, You will be sad, laugh and ponder your life against Irma’s and be glad you can.
    • 2/5
      Irma Voth is a young Mennonite woman from Canada whose family moved to Mexico. She is married to a Mexican man named Jorge who is a rather absent man. She has a very annoying younger sister named Aggie. A somewhat famous movie director comes to her middle of nowhere existence to film a movie about which I never understood the concept. In fact there were many things in this book about which I never understood.It is written in Irma's voice in a very stream of consciousness way. Topics can change in an instant and have minimal bearing to one another. Very little is explained. Maybe I needed to be under the influence of some of what Irma's husband was hiding in the barn....The book did have its moments; some scenes were very funny. It was just hard for me to engage with the cast of characters. So many of them were impossible to like and the overall tone of the book is so very sad.
    • 4/5
      When I first started to read this book I wasn't sure if I was going to continue with it. I just could not get my head around Irma's narration - it was a bit off putting for me, because I didn't know what to make of her. However, I'm truly happy I kept reading, because Irma Voth has to be one of the most odd and interesting characters I've read in quite some time. She's nineteen, married and a Mennonite living in Mexico. Her husband, Jorge, has left her and now she is truly alone. She lives in the house next door to her parents' home - a house that was given to her and Jorge on the condition that they work for free for her father. Irma's dad, Julius, is unhappy with her, because she married a Mexican. She is no longer a part of their Mennonite community. In fact, Irma can't speak to her mother or little brothers or even her younger sister, Aggie. Luckily, Aggie likes to sneak away from home and visit Irma - she is always begging to come and live with Irma. Life doesn't seem to be moving along happily for Irma, when suddenly a film crew arrives at the house next door (also owned by her father). They are setting up shop, because they are making a film about the Mennonite community. In need of a translator they hire Irma, who also agrees to cook and clean for them. She needs the money and needs people to talk with. Soon enough, Irma is enmeshed in this strange world of movie-making and is dealing with depressed actors, uncooperative weather conditions and budget cuts. She befriends Marijke the female lead and Wilson, whose confessed to her that he is dying. Things seem to take a turn when Irma's dad shows up and demands that Aggie return home or he will shut down production on the film - Aggie has been hanging around Irma and the crew much to the dismay of her father. However, after witnessing what happened to Aggie last time she went home, Irma decides to take things into her own hands. Deals are made, trucks are borrowed and flights are arranged. Irma, Aggie, and Ximena (or X as they call her) are on their way to Mexico City. Did I mention that X is Irma and Aggie's baby sister - she was just born and their mother begged Irma to take her with them when they left. What does that tell you about their family? Now, I'm not going to write any more about what happens, because so much does happen in the book, before and after Mexico City. Its a story you need to read for yourself. Irma Voth is a character that will break your heart and make you smile at the underlying courage that glows from within her. She may be a bit off putting at first, but soon enough you will become so enraptured with her story that you wont' be able to put the book down. Miriam Toews has written an amazing book that is lyrical in tone and strong in plot points. Her characters are intriguing and strange. You will not be disappointed!
    • 3/5
      This is a very strange book for me. I didn't really like the middle which dragged on and on and when I finally made it to the end, it was like a different person was writing. This book is like an old mattress with a big sag in the middle. The main character, Irma moved with her family from Canada and continued to live as Mennonites in Mexico. Her father was unbearable, going into rages and rants easily and beating his daughters very hard. Her mother, did not know how to get out of this situation, she loved her daughters dearly but could not protect them from their father. When Irma grew older she met and married Jorge. Predictively, he was not good for Irma too. He left with all the farm work to while he took long trips to "visit his mother". If nothing had happened next, I believe that Irma would have gone on to live a completely miserable life. But a film crew came to their little town. And then the story got interesting, then not interesting, then interesting. For me, I would have enjoyed it better, if Irma just had flashbacks of her time growing up, getting married and then finally finding some freedom and happiness. I know this is a strange recommendation but I highly recommend the last third of the book. That part of the book seemed to have been written by a much better writer than the first two thirds. I received this book from GoodReads but that in no way influenced my review.
    • 5/5
      Miriam Toews is a gifted writer. She has a way of taking broken lives, broken characters, and treating them with dignity and sensitivity. This holds true for Irma Voth.Irma is a Mennonite who moves from Canada to New Mexico with her family. In New Mexico, Irma meets and marries a Mexican man. Her family disapproves, but allows them to live and farm a parcel of the family land.The cultures are too different. While Irma is committed to her marriage, her husband is not. He has other things that he is into, including illegal dealings. He ends up leaving Irma alone to make her own way in the world. Being true to herself has caused Irma much pain and unhappiness. She also feels she has let loved ones down.Irma Voth’s redemption is in finding a place for herself in the world, and usefulness for the gifts she has. In doing this, she is able to not only find herself but to forgive herself, as well.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this tale of a young Mennonite girl marooned on a claustrophobic family compound in rural Mexico. At 19 she has already been through a lot, marrying a non-Mennonite Mexican guy called Jorge and getting ostracised by her family as a result, then being abandoned by Jorge. That’s before the novel even begins. As it progresses, she gets involved with a film crew who have rented the neighbouring house to shoot a movie, steals and sells drugs, and runs away to Mexico City with her younger sister Aggie and newborn baby sister Ximena.In some ways it’s a very familiar tale of a young girl rebelling against a repressive, old-fashioned religious community. The father, especially, was very reminiscent of other crazy authoritarian fathers, for example the missionary father in Poisonwood Bible. Why are fathers with strong religious beliefs so often portrayed in fiction as crazy and authoritarian? It seems a little unfair. Admittedly I don’t have too much experience of extremely religious father figures, but I’m sure they’re not all crazy and authoritarian.In any case, the slightly familiar taste of the story was counter-balanced by the freshness of the language. Virtually every description, even of mundane events and sights, is beautiful and evocative. The dialogue, too, is often sharp and witty, particularly when the two sisters Irma and Aggie are sparring. The dialogue often takes quite an argumentative form, but with a strong undercurrent of tenderness. The depiction of the relationship between the sisters relies heavily on dialogue, because the first-person narrative by the young, inexperienced Irma does not contain a whole lot of mature reflection. So the dialogue has to be very strong, and it is. The relationship between the sisters, on which so much in the novel depends, is strongly drawn and utterly convincing.There’s a big secret in the family, which I won’t reveal here. Again it’s a slightly familiar theme, but it was handled well, and gave some extra resonance to the ending. The main interest for me, though, was in the early farm/movie scenes, the flight to Mexico City and the haphazard floundering around of the young, totally naive sisters in the city. And what held it all together was the wonderful writing, sounding a bit like a teenage diary and yet also managing somehow to be literary, often lyrical. Makes me want to read more by the same author – any suggestions?
    • 3/5
      A coming of age story. Irma, is growing up in a family that on the face of it is strictly mennonite.They are members of a group that has moved to Mexico to remove themselves frpm the risks of conscription and education. Irma marries outside the group, and is banned by her community. The arrival of a film group enables her to see outside her community and she leaves for the city. But there is more to this story than this, becuase with Irma goes not just her teenage sister but also her months old baby sister given to the girls by their mother. It becomes clear that they left canada, their previous home, not just for the usual Mennionite reasons but also because their father had killed an older daughter who had tried to leave his control. I am not convinced that the mother sending the baby away with her teenagers is plausable however abusive her husband and that didn't quite work for me. Well worth reading.
    • 3/5
      Irma Voth is a nineteen year old Mennonite woman in Mexico. She's estranged from her family and her narco husband has left her. Then a film crew arrives and shakes things up even more. I thought this was going to be a plot-driven book about a reclusive community and the disruption and attraction of outsiders with a different way of life. It's not - it's character and language that makes the book special.As a first person narrator, we learn about Irma through her actions, thoughts and the language she chooses to use. Her voice is strikingly naive, as is her behaviour - she hits herself in the head when frustrated, loves playing childlike games and skipping with her husband and she seems to have a superficial understanding of why people act as they do. But she's got a bit of an edge and a definite sense of humour - including exploiting her role as translator for the film to insert irreverant and ridiculous lines into the script. And as the story moves forward we find the depth behind the naive voice and outlook - Irma takes action and takes responsibility for herself and her sisters. As the book reaches its heart, Irma tells us about the awful events which forced the family to move from Canada. I wasn't convinced by what Irma says about her sense of guilt - I found the language distancing, and felt that I was reading and analysing rather than reading and feeling. But it is clear that Irma has not moved on. When we compare Aggie's language, insight and interactions with people to the way that Irma acts, I think we get insight and sympathy for the way that Irma's shock and guilt has inhibited her emotional development and social maturity. I'd recommend this as a fairly quick read with an interesting lead character, and particularly to people who enjoy exploring characters and fallible first person narration.
    • 4/5
       I received this book through the Early Reviewers programme, so thank you for that. It is set in Mexico in a settlement of the Mennonite religious group and is narrated by 19 year old Irma. She has been disowned by her father when she married a Mexican man, but he has since walked out on her. A film crew has come to make a film set in their community which sets off a chain of events that leds to Irma leaving her home. I like the character of Irma, although at times it was hard to remember that she was 19 as she seemed more child-like, which was probably intentional due to her sheltered upbringing. I found my interest in the film-crew and this part of the story waning, so I was glad when the story moved on from here, and I really enjoyed the part about Irma away from home.
    • 5/5
      10 May 2011 - LibraryThing Early Reviewers ProgramIrma's living in a Mennonite colony in Mexico (something I didn't know existed - I learnt a lot from this book), but she's already got involved with the forbidden locals, so once she gets mixed up with a film crew making a drama the community doesn't want, it's only a matter of time before she has to go on the run, trying to rescue her younger sister as well as herself. Before she goes, there are some delicious scenes around the film: as a translator, she's meant to smooth out any misunderstandings, but she subverts her instructions, and bosses, beautifully and hilariously. They meet a lot of transient characters along the way (in a road trip which is reminiscent of her previous novel, "The Flying Troutmans"), as well as more stable people who may be able to hep them more usefully, and gradually adapt to a life of "freedom". The ending, though, leaves a lot of questions to be answered, although not so many as to be unsatisfying. A fast-paced and exciting, but engaging and intriguing, read, with another of Toews' captivating heroines.
    • 4/5
      Irma Voth is a convincing coming-of-age story, perfectly capturing the confusion of having a child’s questions while being forced to make adult choices without the answers. Irma Voth, Mennonite daughter, torn between compliance and rebellion, failed wife at nineteen, is a complex, beautiful character with an endearing wit and sharpness, whose immediate known world is both a comfort and a trap. When a movie-crew arrives to shoot a film about their way of life, she finds in them a catalyst for a new set of decisions… she leaves the farm and her father’s tyranny, with her two younger sisters.The guilt that infuses Irma’s life, and thus her decisions, is a harsh one but it is balanced adroitly with the book’s humour and character, and her ongoing quest to understand what she must do next. I found that I enjoyed getting to know Irma, her sister Aggie and baby Ximena as characters quite separately from enjoying them in the context of the story, which tells me that Toews is a consummate crafter of personality. A small failing of the book was not fully describing the Mennonite lifestyle that Irma had grown up in – the reader gets a sense of their having moved around a lot, but that proves to have been driven by the plot – and having no prior information on the subject, I was left imagining something between Quakerism and general close-knit rural farming families. This leaves Irma’s father’s character somewhat without context, too – is he a product of his own upbringing, a stern man over-validated by the community in which he lives, a cruel man with a naturally despotic disposition? We are left trusting Irma’s point of view which is a) sparsely given and b) unreliable on this subject in a way that it is not in any other.Where Toews really excels is weaving heartache and forgiveness without overselling either one. And in creating a character who I was sorry to leave behind once the book was finished. When a book is named after the principle character, he or she needs to shine to justify it, and Towes accomplishes this with light to spare.
    • 3/5
      This is a charming novel about a young, 19 year old Mennonite woman set in Mexico.I found the writing and, in particular, the dialogue quite basic and "every day" like. Indeed, to begin with, I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book, but it became strangely addictive and was a fairly quick read.Knowing nothing about Mennonites, it taught me about their ways and customs. Irma speaks a handful of languages and there are parts of the story where she speaks in Spanish, for example, and there is no benefit of translation for the reader which I found a little frustrating.Outlining the story in brief, Irma's husband Jorge has left her. To be truthful, it seemed a very odd relationship in the first place. A film director is making a movie about Mennonite people and he asks Irma to be a translator for the lead actor. This she agrees to do, but without the approval of her very strict, orthodox father. He resorts to evicting Irma from the house he has let out to her on her marriage. Because her younger sister Aggie has run away from home, this means she has the responsibility of caring for her also. Her perenially pregnant mother has had another baby and this child is woven in to the story also. The relationship between the sisters is very close, despite Aggie's frustrating teenage behaviour and, for me, this is where the book shines....in depicting this bond. All in all, this is a sweet and gentle story, but, somehow it never quite challenges the reader enough to be memorable.
    • 4/5
      A coming of age tale, set in a Mennonite community in the Mexican desert, Irma Voth is written in the first person, which gives an immediacy to the tale. As this was the first novel of Miriam Toews that I have read I can't comment on how this compares to her earlier work, but can say I found the characters and story engaging from the start. Irma is 19 and has been excluded from the family home after falling in love with and marrying a local boy. However, he too has deserted her. This leaves Irma alone to come into contact with a film crew, who arrive to shoot a low budget art movie, and need Irma's help in translating the language and culture of the Mennonites. The plot avoids taking an obvious turn here, instead of Irma 'running away' with the outsiders, she is drawn back to confront her family, her domineering father, through her sister Aggie.Landscape takes centre stage at points in the book. Seen through the eyes of the film makers, the stark but oppressive beauty of the desert is observed. The themes of family and forgiveness emerge slowly, and pick up pace once the action moves to Mexico City. I found myself rooting for Irma, almost watching through my fingers at points, hoping that things would work out for her. I found the descriptions of the art seen and created in Mexico City moving and effective.It is a quirky tale, which I ended up thoroughly enjoying. I'll certainly look out for Toews' other work.
    • 3/5
      I am going to cheat here and copy the first paragraph from the book cover as descriptive background:In a small, reclusive Mennonite community in the shadow of the Sierra Madre mountains, Irma Voth, eighteen and longing for more than the stifling life offered her by her family, falls in love with a Mexican boy, Jorge, and marries him secretly. Cast out of the house and shunned by her father, they struggle to survive in a Mexico where young men are never far from the seduction and corruption of the drug lords, and Irma's world narrows further, when, despite their love for each other, her new husband inexplicably deserts her.So, we have an eighteen year old bride shunned by her family, abandoned by her husband, trying to figure out which way is up when a film crew arrives and moves in next door to start shooting a movie about the Mennonite community. Did I fail to mention that this community is in a remote area of the desert and that Irma's family arrived in the area six years ago from a Mennonite community in Canada? I read and thoroughly enjoyed Toews' previous novels, The Flying Troutmans and A Complicated Kindness. With this novel, I am seeing a pattern emerge regarding the plot and overall theme of Toews' works. In my opinion, Irma Voth is A Complicated Kindness taken to the next level - If you didn't enjoy A Complicated Kindness , you might not enjoy this one. With this book I had no problem connecting with the characters. I did have a problem with the substance and direction, which I will call hap-hazard at best, for the plot. I know that Toews is known for her quirky, offbeat stories but I think the Mennonite theme might be done by now. Time to move on to other topics, I think.Overall, great characters, interesting but offbeat storyline that made for a just 'okay' read.