Still Point - Amy Sackville & Last Woman - John Benrose

Although the stories are quite different, these two books both suffered a similar flaw and one that can often be quite fatal: the whiny narrator(s) phenomenon.  While the stories themselves were compelling enough, I couldn't engage with the characters.

Still Point sounded so promising on paper.  It told the story of a "great" romance between an arctic explorer and his wife, while also exploring the relationship and ennui of one of the explorer's descendants (it was this woman I found unbearable).  It eventually gets to the point, but by that time I didn't really care.

The Last Woman explores a love triangle in the context of a First Nations land claim in Southern Ontario.  I think that if the book had focused more on the land claim, it would have been a better book.  Instead, I found myself saddled with three characters who lamented the past and all that they'd lost.

I can't fault the writing of either of these books.  Both were filled with lovely prose.  It is unfortunate then that both were undone by the depressing characters.  They did elude to a mental fragility to help explain the female characters' despair, but this still did not help me enjoy the books any further.