Toews always manages to create characters with whom it is easy to empathize.Nothing overly serious here, just a nice little story abouta small town, a mayor with an obsessive personality, and everyday peoplestruggling to deal with relationships, life, death, and a dog who is his own man....errrr....dog.

Algren, where the sky is the color of tolet bowl cleaner and staying the smallest town in Canada is the mayor's number one priority. This book will make you smile.

This is so lovely and like other Toews's books bittersweet but funny (yet not as sad as some of the others). This story is set on Canada's smallest town and there's a hilarious small town vibe that reminded me of Schitts Creek. It's super quirky and funny but also with a melancholic, human side to it. It is not as deep and emotionally charged as her most recent books, though, but maybe a good pick for people that shy away from the saddest titles.

I really like Miriam Toews - I've read her recent books and this was her second novel back in 1998. It's interesting her humour and way with words is very much in evident. The characters are quirky and cute - perhaps a little too quirky - but not really very strong, and there's not a lot of narrative drive. I found myself skipping parts of the text towards the end.

This book is funny and entertaining, but I still prefer Toews's first two more serious books. While highlighting the daily lives of the characters in a small town in Canada, the author also addresses questions of identity and parentage in a light way. Many surprises occur as the mayor tries to keep his town's population at exactly 1,500.

I'm not even sure what or why I loved this so much. But I did. It was perfect.

Another fantastic book by Toews, with all her characteristic quirk, humour and poignancy. I think this might be among my faves of hers ... but then, aren't they all? Some things:1. She's one of those authors who does something magical turning plain-jane words into stories. Magical, as in deceptive: she creates something out of nothing, like making coins appear from behind ears or rabbits out of hats. She reminds me of Alice Munro in a way (and no, I don't think that comparison is at all outlandi...

Who else but the author Miriam Toews could place a story in the "smallest town in Canada" where nothing interesting could ever possibly happen, and make the story interesting. She conjers up a collection of idiosyncratic personalities loaded with foibles and obsessions, and then proceeds to make them believeable and, if not loveable, at least interesting. Never before in history has a small town mayor had to concentrate so mightily of such trivial details in order to maintain the town's populati...

Miriam Toews is from Winnipeg, the great Canadian city that has given the world John K. Samson / The Weakerthans, and Marcel Dzama. Besides being from Winnipeg this book could be set in a Canadian cousin town to Donald Harington's Staymore; oh and she also writes in such an effortlessly feeling kind of way that Harington does, which is also a good thing. The book is also quite funny, and the little girl in the book made me really smile in almost every scene she was in. So unlike most books I lik...

This is another hilarious Toews book. So enjoyable. I had a smile on my face the entire time. Reading Miriam's books are like chatting with friends. The characters are so real and although the situations are sometimes a bit over-the-top (that's what makes them so hilarious) they somehow also feel real. She has an uncanny understanding of the human spirit. I've read several of her books and I've enjoyed every single one! A big thanks to my sister for turning me on to Toews in the first place - sh...

this review is for the audiobook edition, narrated by susanna fournier.i love this book. i've read it a couple of times before, in paper, but wanted to listen to it, to see how it was in that format. fournier is a good narrator and did suit this story... but toews is an excellent reader so it would have been cool to listen to her narrate her own book. my only criticism about the narration is that it felt toooo fast and a little frantic at times. there are certainly those types of moments in the

If I do not live in a small town, at least I can read about one and enjoy it, thanks to Ms Toews. This small Canadian town is outside of Winnipeg, and its mayor, Hosea Funk, plots, plans and counts continuously, hoping it will remain at the number of residents so that it qualifies to be visited by the prime minister.Ms Toews stretches each character in certain ways to bring out their weirdnesses--or, is that what small towns do to us, magnify our quirks?The first chapter is full of heroic deeds,...

The characters in this book are not people you know. With names like Knute, Hosea Funk, Summer Feelin', Euphemia, Combine Jo, and a dog named Bill Quinn, you should expect some quirkiness. They are likable in their own ways and they are made more "normal" by "normal" people loving them (Hosea's girlfriend, Lorna, for example). Sad things happen, but it's not a sad book. To its credit, not once did I look ahead to see what might happen. I wanted to be there as the story unfolded, and I assumed th...

Another Miriam Toews read, my 5th of her books. By page 50, my feelings were that it was an okay story, but not on the level of the others of hers that I've read. By page 100, it had stepped up a level and I was finding it more interesting and the characters were growing on me, especially Hosea. By page 150, it had kept at the 4 star level and I was enjoying the ride. By page 200, I realised why I love her books, and had fallen in love with the town of Algren, and all those within it's town limi...

Who would have thought? Such a lighthearted, breezy Miriam Toews book. But also this she pulls off magnificently, the perfect book to read at this moment in time.Hosea Funk is the mayor of Algren, population 1,500 and in the running for the prize of Canada's smallest town. But babies are being born and people are returning, heck, even his girlfriend wants to move in with him. And it's crucial that he keeps the population down, so they win the Prize and the accounting visit by the prime minister....

Ah, Miriam Toews. How do you do it? Another Toews book filled with small towns and larger than life characters. Careful, funny, tender, and smart, the book saunters along without a huge narrative drive, and peeks slowly in on the lives of a handful of beautifully rendered characters. Every page was a delight, and the ending sat just right with me. A quirky read that's quick to get through but will linger in your mind for weeks after.

After her father’s heart attack, single mom, Knute and her four-year-old daughter move back to the small town of Algren, Manitoba to help her mother look after him. It’s not a bad move for Knute, as not much has gone well for her in Winnipeg. Meanwhile, Algren’s mayor, Hosea Funk, is determined to win praise and acknowledgement for Algren as Canada’s official smallest town. The winner will receive a visit from the prime minister. Due to his mother’s death bed comment, Hosea believes the man is h...

I got a book close to this time last year by this author; Miriam Toews. My Puny Little Sorrows, which ironically I haven't finished bc I have purchased and read two other of her books while reading that one. I really enjoyed this one and want to also recommend it to all of you. There are a few staple characters. A sort of single mom, a mayor who may or may not have been delivered by horse and not a stork, and a little girl with the best name ever Summer Feelin'; all living and learning in the th...

Really cool and original idea for a story - I kept reading because I wanted to find out what would unfold - but ultimately a bit disappointing. I think it either should have been shorter (with fewer "useless" characters) or longer (adding more sustainable plot twists and leaving room for character development, which I feel it sorely lacked). It was very funny though.

This book had me laughing out loud. It's sweet, sad in some ways, but overall a fun read.