All My Puny Sorrows is a beautiful and relatable piece of prose that simultaneously challenges you as it comforts you. Author Miriam Toews hugs and holds you in her perfect words in order to guide you through the pain and joy of familial love. The difficult subject of depression and suicidal tendencies of a loved one are delicate, painful, and possibly triggering. It's strange that a book largely concerned with suicide manages to be so funny and hopeful. All My Puny Sorrows’s tenderness, even in the grimmest of moments, makes the novel a kind of balm for the reader, especially as the world melts and shouts and shakes around us.