Chapters One and Two Summary

The novel, A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, tells the disturbing story of a teenage girl whose family as well as her own life has been torn apart by an overly powerful religion. Nomi struggles through her own crisis of faith as she tries to deal with the disappearance of both her mother and older sister. Eventually Nomi's rebellious behavior causes her to be excommunicated from her church. It is Nomi's father who loves her enough to give her the freedom she needs to leave the town and the religion that she finds so suffocating.

In Chapter One, Nomi tells the reader that she lives alone with her father Ray in a house near Highway Number Twelve. Her mother, Trudie, and sister, Tash, have left home. Tash left with Ian while Trudie, apparently, left home alone. Nomi...