---
product_id: 22609104
title: "All My Puny Sorrows Paperback – July 28, 2015"
brand: "miriam toews"
price: "€ 17.99"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.ie/products/22609104-all-my-puny-sorrows-paperback-july-28-2015
store_origin: IE
region: Ireland
---

# All My Puny Sorrows Paperback – July 28, 2015

**Brand:** miriam toews
**Price:** € 17.99
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** All My Puny Sorrows Paperback – July 28, 2015 by miriam toews
- **How much does it cost?** € 17.99 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ie](https://www.desertcart.ie/products/22609104-all-my-puny-sorrows-paperback-july-28-2015)

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- miriam toews enthusiasts

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## Description

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![All My Puny Sorrows Paperback – July 28, 2015 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51rYSLE2ToL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    "Where does the violence go, if not directly back into our blood and bones?"
  

*by B***Y on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 13, 2016*

What do you do when someone you love is intent on taking their own life?  And they are hospitalized repeatedly, for one serious suicide attempt after another.  Do you respect their wish to die or do you do everything in your power to keep them alive?This is the predicament that Yoli finds herself in when her brilliant and talented sister, Elf, is in the hospital again after swallowing bleach along with another toxin.  Elf wants to die.  It doesn't matter that she is a famous concert pianist with a wonderful husband, a lot of money, and has everything to live for.  She. just. wants. to. die.Yoli and Elf grew up in a small Mennonite community in Canada called East Village.  Their family stood out because of their intellectualism and how they pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in their religion and cultural tradition.  Elf was a quester, a young woman with passion who tested limits.  Yoli looked up to her and they grew up close and loving.  Their mother, a Mennonite wife, still had the verve and acumen to question the elders and, though it was forbidden, brought a piano into their home to feed her daughter's talent.  Their father was thought of as an 'oddball' who went for long walks and "believed that reading and writing and reason were the tickets to paradise".  He was also "quiet, depressive and studious".Yoli is the one who lives hand to mouth.  As the book opens, she is getting her second divorce and has two children from two different men.  She likes to sow her oats and might even be thought of as a bit promiscuous.  She has very little money and the future doesn't promise a whole lot yet she grabs on to life and cherishes it with gusto.  How, she wonders, can Elf, who has everything, want to check out?  "Listen! I want to shout at her.  If anyone's gonna kill themselves it should be me.  I'm a terrible mother for leaving my kids' father and other father.  I'm a terrible wife for sleeping with another man.  Men.  I'm floundering in a dying non-career." And then she wonders, "Maybe it's because you've perfected if that you are now ready to leave it behind.  What else is there left to do?"Yoli wonders about the family and cultural legacies of suicide.  She tries to understand the illness of depression but she doesn't want to let go of her beloved sister.  To help her attain her goal of death would mean she was complicit with Elf.  "I had to know she'd be okay . . . that I would bow down before her suffering with compassion."This is a brilliant book, one that not only engages the reader totally, but looks into the depths of human suffering and despair.  As the poet Roethke says, "What is madness but nobility of the soul at odds with circumstance."  While this isn't true for all mental illness, sometimes there is no other answer.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Harrowing and emotional but beautifully written...
  

*by L***R on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 15, 2014*

So if you're thinking a book called All My Puny Sorrows is going to be a bit of a downer, you're definitely right, but the talent of Miriam Toews is definitely something to behold despite the harrowing nature of the book.Elf (Elfrieda) and Yoli (Yolandi) are sisters and best friends. Growing up in a Mennonite community outside of Winnipeg, they were tremendously close as they united against the way the community's elders treated women and tried to marginalize Elf's talent playing the piano. They also tried to understand the mood swings of their father, a gentle man who felt desperately passionate about so many things.As adults, on the surface Elf leads a glamorous life—she has a devoted husband and a successful career as a renowned concert pianist, while Yoli has been divorced twice and is struggling to cope with raising her two children as they approach adulthood, as well as financial, romantic, and career difficulties. Yet Elf suffers from a crushing depression and desperately wants to end her life, although her attempts have all ended in failure."It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other."What Yoli wants is for Elf to finally get the treatment she so desperately needs, so she can finally enjoy her life and once again be the passionate, highly intelligent person Yoli knows and loves. And more than that, Yoli really wants her confidante again, wants someone to help guide her out of the mess that she is making with her life and help her regain the confidence she needs to move her writing career in a different direction. But despite the love of her husband, her family, and her fans, all Elf really wants is to die, so her suffering can end.As hard as Yoli fights to change Elf's mind about dying, Elf fights just as hard to convince Yoli to help her end her life. How do you convince someone you love that their life is worth living when they are unable to see that for themselves? Is it our responsibility to help those we care about end their suffering?I've never read anything by Miriam Toews before, but I was truly wowed by her ability to inhabit these characters. This is an incredibly moving book about the toll depression and suicide have not only on the person struggling, but on those who care about them. It's also a story about finding the strength to carry on when it feels like you have nothing left, and everything seems to be going against you.This is a hard book to read because of the emotional nature of the subject matter and the suffering that the characters endure (and I've only scratched the surface in my description), but Toews' prose is so lyrical, almost poetic at times, and it truly immerses you in the story. At times it got a bit difficult because the hits kept on coming, and it was hard to watch Yoli make such a mess of her own life at the same time, but the beauty and power of Toews' writing compels you to soldier on.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    It's funnier than you might imagine
  

*by A***R on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 22, 2022*

What's not to like about recovering Mennonites who have gone completely liberally mad and lost all filters and with that they make you laugh and cry at the same time.  I haven't finished the book so I may feel differently but the writing is excellent and you feel for both sisters, almost more for the one who wants to live than the one who wants to die!!

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*Store origin: IE*
*Last updated: 2026-03-22*