A Complicated Kindness Themes

Nomi, the teenage protagonist of A Complicated Kindness, has grown up in a remote village of Mennonites, a Christian sect that emphasizes austere ways of life and limited contact with modernity. However, as she comes of age and confronts the dissolution of her family, Nomi grows to doubt the strict religious principles that govern her life. Nomi endlessly mocks dogma she finds to be pointless and sharply criticizes teachers and clerics who use…

In A Complicated Kindness, Nomi, a Mennonite teenager, grapples with the collapse of her home life after her mother and sister leave the family. Over the course of the novel, the physical breakdown of Nomi’s house mirrors the dissolution of her family and the subsequent decline of her own mental health. At first Nomi confronts these challenges by preserving as much of her previous life as possible, even if doing so means ignoring…

In A Complicated Kindness, teenager Nomi Nickel relates the complex tale of her family’s departure from the Mennonite community. Interspersing present action and past memory, Nomi creates a circular narrative that prioritizes memory and emotion over facts and chronology. This style clashes with her teacher Mr. Quiring’s insistence that she write linear and well-organized reports and, more broadly, that she live in unquestioning devotion to the Mennonite Church and its leaders. In light of…

As a child in the Mennonite community, Nomi has learned that in order to secure heavenly salvation, she must eschew most of the pleasures of life on earth, from smoking and sex to owning new appliances or listening to modern music. As she grows up, Nomi chafes against this austere worldview and starts to do drugs, hoard records, and have sex with her boyfriend Travis. But she also rebels in more subtle ways: the…