Apparently, I completely misconstrued what Last Winter is about. I thought it was about an avalanche that engulfs a group of schoolkids, killing all of them but two, with one of the survivors being an eight-year-old girl whose father was the guide. Her father is still missing after the bodies of her schoolmates are recovered, so she decides to go off on her own in the wilderness to find him. I imagined a suspenseful adventure story with a precocious protagonist with mad survival skills. Instead, Last Winter is an uncomfortable story about the demise of a relationship between a mentally ill woman and a man who cannot deal with his wife’s mental health issues anymore. I would not have read this novel if I had known what I was actually getting myself into.

The avalanche that kills the group of children still happens, but it is an incidental part of the story. Last Winter begins after the avalanche has happened. The precocious protagonist is Ruby, who, because of the conflict between her parents, has become selectively mute. She does decide to go off on her own to look for her father, Gus, as his body has yet to be recovered in the aftermath of the avalanche. For Ruby, this is a sign that he is still alive and waiting for her to find him. Ruby’s mother, Fiona, has no idea that her daughter has gone missing until the police and concerned neighbours show up at her door.

At this point, the story goes back in time to the weeks before the avalanche when Fiona and Gus’s marriage is at a breaking point. We learn through flashbacks that Fiona and Gus met at Whistler where Fiona, who is from England, is visiting with her friends. Fiona is Bipolar and going through a manic episode when she meets Gus. She becomes pregnant with Ruby, and Gus asks her to stay in Canada with him. That is always an auspicious start to a relationship. The story is told mainly through Fiona’s perspective, and it is incredibly difficult to read as Fiona oscillates between mania and depression because she does not want to take her medication. The author, Carrie Mac, is Bipolar, so I feel that this must be an authentic depiction of Bipolarism. There were moments that really tested my ability to emphasize with Fiona because she kept doing the most ignorantly ridiculous things that she would know were wrong if she would just take her medication. I empathized the most with Ruby, Gus and Fiona’s best friend, Willy, who all work hard to take care of Fiona and she does not even realize it. Gus wants to leave Fiona and take Ruby with him because of the effect Fiona’s mental illness is having on Ruby, until the avalanche sweeps in and changes everything.

The avalanche itself, although not the main focus of the story, is affectingly told. It is absolutely devastating to imagine all those young lives cut off abruptly, and to read about the parents’ heartbreak over losing their children. I do appreciate an emotional story and being challenged by other people’s circumstances that are far removed from my own, but I think because of my own strong negative reactions while reading this novel, Last Winter is not for everyone.