Irma Voth

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more conspires to bring Irma full circle into a place of welcome and maturity. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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, show more 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. show less

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.

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less