Fiction by Miriam Toews
Yolandi and Elfrieda are sisters who grew up as Canadian Mennonites and are still close as adults. However, they are very different.
Elfrieda, the older sister, is a successful concert pianist with a loving husband and beautiful apartment in Winnipeg. Yolandi is a broke divorcee with two kids by two different dads and a crappy apartment in Toronto. But the biggest problem the sisters face is the fact that Elfrieda keeps trying to kill herself.
This was a hard book for me to read, because I could not see it ever ending well. Elf was just so despairing. Nothing anyone said seemed to make her want to live. The characters were so realistic I could feel both sisters' sorrow. (Not to mention their mother!)
I can't say how this book ended of course (I have rules about that), but it's not really a sad ending. The interesting thing is how little actual life circumstances seemed to affect these women's natural optimism or pessimism. This book definitely made me think.
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