Bear is a wild book in so many ways. It starts as a fairy tale, but this is more of a dark Grimm fairy tale than any gentle tale of girls in the woods. It's smart and beautifully written, with lush prose. It didn't entirely work for me, however. I love a fairy tale retelling, but I spent much of the novel frustrated with the two sister's actions- though much of the story revolves around the question of who is the good sister, anyways. I did not love this, but I liked it, and I thought it was a fitting meditation on humanity versus nature, and what it means to want more when more may be beyond us. Four complicated and messy, but powerful, stars.

This is a big, brave and brutal book - a story of two sisters living a hard life on San Juan Island off the Washington coast. The geography was a character of its own, one I know well having been to the island several times. The depictions of the landscape, the water, the ferries, and the town of Friday Harbor added to my enjoyment and investment in the story.

Elena and Sam are struggling to get by, as their mother lingers from a deadly disease. Elena is the 'responsible' one who holds this fragile family together. Sam is the dreamer, who knows one day they will pay off their debts, get off the island, and have a chance at a better life.

Then something mysterious happens - a bear shows up on the island, and at the sisters' front door. Sam is afraid and cautious, but Elena sees the animal as a sign. And so the split between the sisters begins. Sam wants to report the bear to authorities, Elena considers the bear her spirit animal.

Sam begins a campaign to win her sister back to her side, working with state officials, a friendly neighbor, and a wanna-be boyfriend.
The story focuses on the struggle between the sisters, between human and wild animal, and between dreams and idle wishes. Highly recommended!

Sometimes I think if I read another book about a middle-aged woman finding out her husband is having an affair; or about a thirty-something finding love where she least expects it; or about a divorced woman hiding from her abusive ex... I will just give up on reading! (haha - not really. NEVER!)
BUT - I've never read a novel with a plot like this one (I guarantee you haven't either) and it was awesome. I was hooked from the beginning and I read through it very quickly, loving every page. Without spoiling anything - I'll just say that the story is about two sisters who have had very difficult lives, but seem to be managing. Then the title character arrives.
I was a fan of Phillip's first book, Disappearing Earth. This book is very different and I liked it even better. She is brilliant at using words and phrases that surprised and delighted me. An experience riding on a ferry happens during a "few wet minutes", the moon is "a hole in the darkness". Metaphors are light and perfect. Twists are unexpected but absolutely earned. Loved it.

BEAR by Julia Phillips is a novel purportedly about two sisters, Sam and Elena, who live with their ailing mother in financial precarity on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington. When a bear starts coming around to their home, Sam becomes increasingly distraught, while Elena views it as a thrilling diversion. Halfway through, I was wondering where, exactly, this was all going—because a bear isn’t that scary or unusual to me. Knowing Phillips’ brilliance from her first novel, DISAPPEARING EARTH, I kept reading, trusting that she’d spin something splendid from this premise.

She does. This is a novel about dreams deferred, the things we hold on to, misperception, and sisterhood. What I love most is that there isn’t just one interpretation of the bear and what it signifies; there are multiple levels at which the narrative works, the bear a shape-shifting shadow that casts dappled patterns onto the terrain of the story and onto the psychology of the sisters. There’s their mother’s abusive boyfriend, a stale friend-with-benefits situation, terminal illness, the suffocating sensation of being trapped on an island, the older sister-younger sister dynamic, and the disorienting vertigo of questioning everything you ever believed. It’s a Rorschach test of sorts, perhaps, but I don’t want to give the impression that this is just a cerebral book that twists your brain into knots. Rather, it coaxes the reader to accompany Sam to the emotional precipice of that moment that she’s been waiting for all her life, after which everything will finally fall into place.

I will absolutely read anything Phillips writes; her prose always reminds me of why I love the act of reading—pure pleasure. I fully recommend BEAR to patient readers of literary fiction who are willing to wait for the payoff; the second half of the novel acquires escalating complexity and intensifying unease as the reader is led into an open-ended modern parable with age-old themes.

I didn't care for this book.
My sympathy was for the bear. I was against Elena’s feeding the wild animal or having any intersection with it because it’s always to the animal’s detriment.
I didn’t like any of the characters except for the bear.

This was an absolutely spellbinding story of two sisters and their lives on the island of San Juan, Washington. It felt like I was reading a modern-day fairytale where you have a sickening sense of dread at what you sense is coming but you can’t stop reading.

At some points, while reading, I wished that we got POVs from both sisters instead of just Sam. I really feel like their perspectives and the way that they interpret events would have made an excellent contrast. Even without Elena’s POV, the interactions between her and Sam show the full range of sibling relationships. It felt so raw and real. The struggles that they go through are depicted in such a human way.

A captivating and thought provoking story about sisterhood, class, and our relationship with nature. The writing is atmospheric with rich character development. A good read!
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

BEAR follows two sisters, Sam and Elena, who live with their dying mother on an island off the coast of Washington. They’re barely scraping by with their low-paying service industry jobs while attempting to manage their mother’s care and mounting medical bills. Their lives are upended when a bear arrives on the island and seems to have a connection to the sisters. While Sam is terrified, Elena is enchanted.

I was intrigued by the unique, seemingly trance-like premise of this book, but despite how quickly I read it, I didn’t get that sort of hazy experience I was hoping for. The characters felt one-dimensional with little nuance, and I didn’t care much about either of the sisters. I really disliked being in Sam’s head the entire time and wished we could have gotten Elena’s perspective. I think Elena’s POV would’ve made the book much stronger.

Aside from the characters, I also didn’t find the writing style to be effective. It felt a bit bland and kept the reader at an arm’s length throughout. I was hoping to get swept up in a strange fairytale retelling, but I ended up feeling detached and frustrated.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hogarth for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Based on other reviews I’ve seen, I’m in the minority on this one. BEAR is out today, 6/25!

A beautiful story about sisterhood and life struggles. The descriptions of the place and the bear were captivating. I highly recommend this book.

BEAR is beautifully written. There are some absolutely gorgeous passages in this book. That's not the issue I had with it. The plot moved too slowly, and it was hard to keep my attention because there wasn't much happening. I also did not like the ending. It was a great premise with beautiful writing and still fell flat for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of this book. This is sort of sad to realize that many people are stuck in their lives like Sam and Elena. They are two girls on the coast who have dead end jobs. Things that are supposed to get better don’t get better. Boys and men are not how they should be, or how Sam and Elena need and want them to be. Sam sees a bear swimming next to the ferry she works on. It’s a bear but also something more. She wants more. She is the younger, braver sister. Elena wants to be responsible. This would be great for book club. We each have our own bear inside, something we would like to chase but don’t. I can see this being made into a movie. Put this next to your favorite chair so you can settle in for a good read. Thank me later

Bear is such a dark, interesting tale. It was hard to put down, even when I felt my stomach tightening in anxiety. I felt like "this isn't going to end well" was my mantra. The ending left me with mixed emotions.

Sam and Elena live with their terminally ill mother in a little house off the coast of Washington. Not much happens there besides their daily routines of work and taking care of their mother. Sam doesn't want her mom gone but she can't wait for she and Elena to follow their lifelong dream and sell the house and property and move far away together. That is until one night when a grizzly bear appears at their front door. That is only the beginning. They are told the bear is on it's way north but it keeps reappearing close to them. Sam is scared. I think she knows this is going to change her and her sister's dreams for a future out of there. That is all Sam thinks about. Sam was a hard character to like. She puts off everyone in her life except Elena.

Elena finds a connection with the bear and feeds him and keeps him coming back around. Sam wants that all to end. She knows it will end badly for Elena. Things are going along until they aren't.

Such an interesting story and so hard to put down. We all see things differently in this world as the story tells us. There is a beauty and terror in nature. There is a beauty and terror in love.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Hogarth for a copy of this book for review.

The struggle to finish this one was real for me. The only reason I kept going was because I loved the setting. I’m certainly no expert on the San Juan Islands, but I visited there a few years ago and it was magical. So this book felt like a return to that part of the world and I relished all the memories it brought back up for me. Julia Phillips nailed the atmosphere and it’s easily my favorite part of the book.

Beyond that, there wasn’t much for me to grab onto. One of the sisters was insufferable and, honestly, she’s probably what really ruined the whole thing for me. I didn’t truly understand the hype about the bear. It was intriguing to me, it didn’t metaphorically represent something else that made him relevant, and the ending was nuts (no spoilers).

I think Phillips just isn’t an author for me. I didn’t enjoy her debut book either (Disappearing Earth), so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I really liked this book. It has a fairy tale like quality set in the real world. A story of sisters, loss, expectations, and disappointments.

Julia Phillips is a talented writer, there is absolutely zero doubt. Bear is lyrical and foreboding with a sense of unease creeping on every page. I wanted to love this story so badly but I just couldn’t connect with our MC. I wanted to get out of her head and I just abhorred the ending. I know many will appreciate the masterful writing but this one was just too slow and depressing for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC.

Bear is a surreal book about the relationship between two sisters, their mother, a bear, and their individual lives. Secrets abound, as well as faux-paus between the characters within. This is a parable about secrets, and the relationships we form with family. I enjoyed many aspects of the novel, such as Phillips writing style, but in the end, the book fell flat for me.

DNF at 4%.

I'm just not excited by the opening of this book when I have so many other books to be excited about. I'm still going to give it a neutral three-star rating though!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC. This title published June 25, 2024!

As a huge fan of Julia Phillips’ debut Disappearing Earth, I was incredibly excited about her long-awaited second novel. Unfortunately, Bear just wasn’t for me. As someone that worked a service job during the pandemic, a lot of this struggled to ring true, and the sister relationship did not quite make sense to me. I was so frustrated with the decisions that everyone was making, which just left me finishing the book while kind of mad.

ok. So, I have all kinds of feelings about this book. I requested it from NetGalley because I loved Philllips' <I>Disappearing Earth</I>, and her writing is just as evocative and moving as I remember. There is a fairly dysfunctional family at the heart of this story, but it's almost as if they have no idea they are dysfunctional until it's too late. Each character lives in their own world of reality, with very little overlap between them.

And then, there's a Bear. This is not a spoiler if you've read the title, but I do feel the need to warn you. You might, if you're like me, find yourself irrationally screaming (on the inside) at the characters, "It's a BEAR!!!" but it will not help the situation. I was compelled to keep reading to see how it would all work out (this was not for everyone, if you read other reviews, but I thought it was the only plausible ending). As you might have guessed by now, I didn't particularly care for the main characters, though I did sincerely like several of the secondary characters. I also enjoyed the setting of the story, which might be considered a character in itself, in a part of the world I've never been. When all is said and done, this story left me thinking about it long after I turned the last page, so despite my misgivings, there is something to be said for that.

Set in the beautiful, slightly wild, yet settled San Juan islands of the Pacific northwest, Bear is an intriguing look at the hardships and beauty of life, and the delicate balance of all things.

Sam and Elena are sisters. The circumstances of their lives stem from growing up in an enchanted, isolated place in an inherited home with a beautiful mother who struggled to make ends meet. Along comes a step-father who rules with an iron fist. Sam and Elena learn to depend solely upon each other and they dream of getting off their island and living together, united forever. Their step-father is removed from their lives and their mother floats through the rest of her life. Gradually she becomes more frail and dependent on the girls as illness takes over her body. The only tie Sam feels to the island is her mother's dwindling health and her plans to leave with her sister.

Working for the ferry system, Sam and other passengers are astounded to see a bear swimming in the open water toward their island. Sam wakes soon after that encounter to discover the bear has visited their home. She is terrified and thrilled, but her sister is enchanted. The story is of the very different reactions to the bear in their lives, and how for so long sister were united in their quest for a different life. The story of the bear really is an allegory of how two people are seemingly so in sync, yet vastly different under the surface. Life never brings what we expect. There is beauty all around us, as well as darkness and fear. Essentially what we feed grows and fulfills our expectations.

This is the story of life and it's path of twists and turns. Often the reality we imagine is vastly different from what the outcome brings.