Fight Night by Miriam Toews is a funny, poignant, and ultimately hopeful novel about a young woman named Astrid who is trying to find her place in the world. Astrid is a talented artist, but she is also struggling with her mental health. She is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she spends time in and out of psychiatric hospitals.

The novel follows Astrid as she tries to find her way in the world. She goes to college, gets a job, and starts a relationship. But she also continues to struggle with her mental health, and she makes some bad decisions.

Fight Night is a raw and honest novel about mental illness. Toews does not shy away from the difficult aspects of Astrid's journey, but she also shows the hope and resilience that Astrid finds along the way.

The novel is also very funny. Toews has a gift for finding the humor in even the darkest of situations. She also writes beautifully about the power of art and the importance of community.

If you are looking for a funny, poignant, and ultimately hopeful novel about mental illness, then I highly recommend Fight Night.

Told in a stream of consciousness style from the perspective of Swiv, writing to her absent father about living with her mum and grandmother, having recorded some of her conversations with them.

Swiv has been expelled from school so spends a lot of time caring for her grandmother while she homeschools her. The author captures very well the eccentricities of each character and the warmth of the martilineal relationships

I've been trying to read this for a while but I think it's a give up the ghost moment. I so wish I was the type of person who loved this book as I know there's so much joy in it. But, alas I cannot.

Another great book by Miriam Toews. Some familiar themes if you’ve read her previous work but she writes them so well that doesn’t matter. I’ve since bought myself a hard copy to keep on my shelf.

I was sent a copy of Fight Night by Miriam Toews to read and review by NetGalley. When I started reading this novel I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it as I couldn’t quite get to grips with the style of writing. It is written from the viewpoint of young protagonist Swiv as a letter to her absent father, telling him about her life with her pregnant mother and her grandmother. There is no speech punctuation, which is not something that I’m particularly drawn to, but the further I got into the book the more I became accustomed to its rhythm and the various Americanisms that, being a Brit, I didn’t always understand. By the time I was half way through I found I had become really invested in this quirky family and the promised humour had finally kicked in. I would say that reading this book is a bit challenging in the beginning but it is well worth persevering with, I’m so glad I read it!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC to review. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I cannot wait to buy and reread it. An incredible narrative voice.

Thanks so much to Faber for gifting me this! Centring on nine-year-old Swiv, her mum, and her irrepressibly vivid grandma, this is a story of family and growing up and the legacy of mental health and being a carer and basically all things life. Told through Swiv's letters to her absent dad, Fight Night is brimming with idiosyncracy and verve; Swiv's voice is impeccably done, laced with both a maturity beyond her age and the stifling awkwardness and embarrassment that a child often feels towards their parents. It's a book I admired rather than loved; you can tell Miriam Toews is talented, especially at crafting voice and character (I won't forget Grandma for a while) but, for me, this never went beyond being a pleasant accompaniment to my travels. If you're interested, you should definitely pick it up!

This is one wild ride of a novel. In fact, it’s absolute chaos but in a good way. Swiv and Grandma are fabulous creations and the bond between them is so hilarious and touching. I must admit to being shocked when I found out only after finishing that Swiv is only supposed to be nine years old. I’d assumed about 13, and it did retrospectively alter my view of the book in a slightly uncomfortable way.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. A good premise, very good writing and a well drawn, entertaining character in Swiv, this was a good and quick read.

I've read women talking and I really enjoyed the writing, so I was really excited about this book! All I can say is that it absolutely blew me away, I had such an emotional reaction to it and it's now one of my favourite books ever!!!

I absolutely love the writing, miriam toews manages to perfectly characterise the inner monologue and perceptions of a child and everything the characters do or are perceived to do is just so real! I saw a lot of myself in the protagonist, her thought processes were so specific and well thought out.

The writing style is really unique and sometimes when an author does something different it comes across as trying too hard to be different but toews' writing just feels so natural, it's very stream of consciousness, almost as if the words are just pouring out of her brain onto the page.

I would absolutely recommend this to anyone, my best friend has already purchased the book !!

To my shame, I hadn't heard of Miram Toews before being drawn to the description of Fight Night but will certainly be looking up her back catalogue.

The narrative takes the form of a letter to an absent father, written by Swiv, a 9-year-old girl who lives with her heavily pregnant actress mother and physically frail but indomitable grandmother Elvira in a small apartment in Toronto. Elvira has fought all her life - against a repressive patriarchal religious community (the Mennonites, though it is never explicitly stated in this book), through emigration and a troubled family history dogged by mental health issues and suicides. From the outset it is clear that her days are numbered, and she is dedicating her remaining time to bringing up Swiv, supporting Swiv's mother, and living her fullest life by 'focussing on the big picture'. Her mantra is that women have to fight - Swiv has taken this very literally and as a result has been suspended from school, so Elvira is teaching her at home in rather unorthodox ways.

Swiv is a marvellous creation - a young child thrust into the role of carer for an ailing grandmother, overwhelmed by anxieties that her grandma will die, and her emotionally volatile mother will follow the family tradition of suicide. She worries about the unborn baby Gord having to spend all its time with her mother's emotional swings. She keeps a close watch on her grandmother's medications schedule, knows what to do in the event of a sudden cardiac arrest and when to call an ambulance, cheerfully doffs and dons her gran's compression stockings, and listens to and records her stories. And what stories they are - cryptic, meandering, hinting at much past strife, but with the core message that life goes on and the only way is to meet it head-on. At times acutely embarrassed by the outspoken adults around her, at times wise beyond her years, at times sounding sophisticated but not quite understanding the adult goings-on around her, Swiv is utterly believable and utterly loveable and utterly heartbreaking.

Elvira is pretty marvellous too. Having dealt with her husband and daughter's suicides, she is not about to let her own impending mortality get to her. She is witty and funny and has no shame about bodily functions, much to Swiv's cringing embarrassment. As her health deteriorates she embarks upon a trip to California to visit her nephews - an episode of utter joy.

Next to Swiv and Elvira, the mother's character is sketchier. But in spite of Swiv's constant worrying about emotional volatility, the family history of instability and the unborn baby, her mother has survived and is just as strong as Elvira. The ending of the novel is as masterly as the rest of it and had me in floods of tears.

On the evidence of this book Miriam Toews is right up there with the greatest female writers - Marilynne Robinson, earlier Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout. I will be reading her other books this summer.

This book surprised me! When I started reading, I found Swiv’s perspective and her grandma’s characterisation a bit too quirky and slightly annoying, maybe a bit gimmicky. But after a few chapters, it started growing on me and I was eventually completely won over by them as characters. The ending moved me, and I was overall impressed with the story Miriam Toews tells and the characters she manages to bring to life so vividly, even the ones that were only present in a few pages.

This is a powerful tour de force as was 'All my puny sorrows' Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind for such power but it didn't work for me as well as the previous novel. Didn't identify with any of the characters but appreciate the literary power involved. Will try again - maybe during a long winter evening!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was a short but intense read about three generations of women - narrated by child Swiv but the star of the novel is undoubtedly Swiv's grandmother. Toews explores generational relationships, mental health and trauma with a deft, and tender touch, with a lot of humour thrown in. I'll definitely be searching out her other novels.

What an utterly joyful book from start to finish! Absolutely loved Fight Night and the force of nature that is Grandma Elvira. One of the best books I’ve read this year.

This one simply didn’t work for me and I abandoned it. I found the child’s narrative voice implausible and irritating and far too mature for her age. Neither mother nor grandmother felt convincing characters and the constant zaniness of the whole thing wearing in the extreme. I remained unengaged and not charmed as so many other readers have been. Disappointing as I have very much enjoyed Miriam Toews in the past.

I really could not get along with reading a book written from the perspective of a foul-mouthed child, expelled from school and supposedly being educated by her grandmother in a very loose way. Her mother seems totally divorced from the reality of being a breadwinner, since she is an 'actress', pregnant and her husband has disappeared. Grandmother is quite a character, but not appealing to me.

I didn't like the writing style, I didn't identify or like the characters, I couldn't finish the book (a very rare occurence, I usually plough through even the most turgid tome to give a fair review).

Not for me, sorry. Thank you to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I've read all Miriam Toews work, she has a unique writing style. and Fight Night is another original. Swiv, the narrator, tells the story of her upbringing and family, partly in letters to her Dad, who has gone off somewhere.
Swiv, her pregnant Mum, and her incredible grandmother are all such interesting and loveable characters. Swiv is constantly embarrassed by both of them, but there is also so much love in the family. The way Swiv includes Gord, the unborn baby, is brilliant. The book is really funny, and also poignant. Highly recommended.

It really isn’t easy to write a book in the voice of a nine-year old. Toews manages it, plus. Swim is funny, sassy and age-appropriately embarrassed by the adults around her. Touching with laugh out loud moments, this book is fresh and unusual, but in a very good way.
If you want to read something different and quirky with a real heart - this is for you. I definitely recommend it.

I haven’t read anything by Toews until Fight Night, but this book has definitely made me more interested in reading more from her.

Swiv, nine-years-old and living in Toronto, is tasked by her grandmother to write to Swiv’s absent father. In Swiv’s voice, we learn of her grandmother and mother, and the family as a whole, a family made up of fighters. We travel to California and back, all in an unforgettable voice. Writing a child’s point of view is hard. Writing a child’s point of view for an adult audience is an incredibly difficult task, and I always admire the authors who can do it well. Toews does is very well indeed.

We get everything filtered through Swiv, causing some absolutely brilliant laugh out loud moments. But there’s also times you want to wrap her up and hug her so tight, where you can’t help but feel deeply for her and her family. She speaks not just to her absent father, but also to her unborn sibling, Gord, who she feels bad for leaving alone with their mother.

Swiv’s voice does come through as a little mature for her age at times, but as the book went on it felt more like Swiv is mature, in a way some kids are who go through a lot at such a young age. Although her grandmother takes over her schooling, it becomes clear Swiv acts more as a carer to her gran, ensuring she takes her pills, picking up after her, running errands with her.

For me, some of Swiv’s attitude spoke to anxiety, filtered through a child’s eyes who doesn’t necessarily have the words to describe a panic attack, or who is constantly worried about the next bad thing to happen, but even with these there’s a funny tone to it, as she looks at the harmless things adults are doing and comes to the worst conclusion. There are times, too, where the adults talk of sex or make innuendos around her, making Swiv constantly awkward and embarrassed. It’s really endearing, throughout, to see Swiv’s reaction to the situations she’s in, and to feel how embarrassed she is by her family, while also coming to love her grandmother and mother as much as we love Swiv.

I repeat: I absolutely loved Swiv. She’s endearing, and wonderful, and despite the things getting thrown at her, she takes everything in stride. Her mother and grandmother are eccentric, embarrassing, and fierce, raising a girl to be strong-willed and to fight and be true to herself, the most important lesson her grandmother teaches her. This book is heart warming and sweet and at times, yes, sad, and it all works together wonderfully.

Thank you to Faber and Faber for providing me a copy of this book via NetGalley.