I’m not sure who the key audience for this is, but it isn’t me. This was way too depressing for me. I only read it because it was given to me on NetGalley.

A heartbreakingly beautiful memoir of a daughter and her coming to terms with her mother’s dementia. The illustrations in this graphic novel were quite beautiful and I also enjoyed the real photos throughout. My heart broke for the daughter when she realized she had to make a decision and didn’t know which was the right one. I cried at the end.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Having experienced the decline of a family member in a similar way, this one hit close to home for me. The delicate rendering of the snow and the people perfectly complimented the heavy narrative.

i can't finish this book for a couple of reasons:

i got to about 50% but

• the humour is not landing for me considering the tone of the rest of the book.
• the art style, although great, is not for me.

A heartfelt memoir about a mother living with dementia at her old age. The illustration is in doodle-style, completed with real pictures of the memories the mother kept neatly in the basement. The narrative is laced with light humor, and it gave me a perspective about insurance which is kind of wild I think. Can’t believe there’s people benefitting from the future’s uncertainty just to pay them back in dust when the “worst” is actually happening.

Perfect for Dancing at the Pity Party readers.

I really enjoyed Polar Vortex. I appreciated the author's exploration of caring for an aging parent with dementia. It showed how difficult and overwhelming the experience can be, but I also appreciated the author's ability to find the sunny moments amidst a blizzard.

If i had read this book 20 years ago, I would have sympathized, but not understood. Those of you who do not have elderly parents have *no* idea what getting them sorted when they can no longer live at home is like. With my mother, we had at least talked about it, and when the time came, she came to live with us.


The author in this story, lives abroad, and knows she can’t get her mother to come live with them, so goes to see what she can do. The way Medicare works in the United States is *very* confusing. The whole principal is that you have to keep getting better. When my partner ended up in the hospital, one of the reasons she was able to get in-hospital rehab was because she *was* getting better. In the case of the mother in this story, she is not getting better. She has dementia of some sort, and doesn’t seem to understand where she is until the system kicks her out and she goes home. There she is herself for the first time in the novel, and finally finds her purse that didn’t go to the hospital with her
The polar vortex in the title is referring to the type of weather that the area where her mother lives is having. Very different from the UK, where the author lives.


An excellent book for those who have gone through this, and those who have yet to go through this. I could see my mother in her mother.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is coming out the 5th of March 2024.