Member Reviews
This story is loosely based on the fairy tale “Snow White and Rose Red” and is about two sisters, Elena and Sam who live with their terminally ill mother on an island off the coast of Washington state. Like the fairy tale, the sisters, Elena and Sam, are incredibly close and work hard to keep their household afloat and tend to their sick mother. Also, like in the fairy tale, a bear shows up on their doorstep. Elena is fascinated by and forms an attachment to the bear, and that’s about when the fairy tale comparison ends. I am not an expert on wildlife, but have heard those who are (park rangers, wildlife biologists) warn against feeding or getting too close to animals in the wild and I see no reason to doubt this. There are plenty of YouTube videos of idiots trying to get a picture of the “cute bison” or climbing over a fence in a zoo to pet the “pretty tiger.” Usually nothing good comes of these irresponsible actions for the human or the animal. Everyone in the book, except Elena, seems to have the same understanding. This is the part of the book that lost me.
Sam is mad at the world and distrusts everyone except Elena who has acted as a protective mother figure. She is under the impression that once the mother dies, the sisters will sell their valuable property and live off the proceeds happily ever after. The land the family lives on is quite valuable, but the family is drowning in debt. I was not sure if Sam was oblivious or in denial to the reality of their financial situation (medical bills, mortgages), but she apparently didn’t know this. Turns out she also was oblivious and/or in denial about many aspects of her sister’s life.
I just finished Bear yesterday and am still digesting it. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the attraction to a huge smelly wild animal who is as likely to kill me as not and hope Sam gets therapy. I think this would be a good book club selection – lots to talk about.
A sad, sensitive portrayal of a devoted but downtrodden family struggling to survive and improve their lives despite circumstances beyond their control when an unusual event pulls them out of their routine.
dNF. Not sure what,s the point of this story. Writing is very well done, but lacks movement. I was interested in the sisters dynamic,relationship, but even that couldn’t keep me reading.
i love books about sisters, but this read more like a soap opera: everything bad that can happen will happen, with no time for character development along the way.
i wish i read this earlier, i enjoyed it and would recommend. i thought it was unique and i loved the setting.
I tried quite a few times to get into this novel, but unfortunately it felt just a little one-dimensional to me. I'm glad it appears to have found its readers, and maybe at a later time it'll strike me differently!
This one was not for me. Did not connect with the characters at all so it made it hard to sympathize.
Although I can understand why other people may have enjoyed it.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Hogarth for gifting me a digital ARC of this fairy-tale like story by Julia Phillips. All opinions expressed in this review are my own – 4.5 stars!
Elena and Sam are two sisters living on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington. They are just barely surviving financially, with Sam working concessions on the ferry and Elena waitressing, to help keep their family going. Their mother has lung cancer from chemicals inhaled after years of doing other people’s nails. Sam dreams of the day when they can eventually sell their family home and escape the small town with her sister. But everything changes when a bear appears in the area.
I loved this wonderfully written, atmospheric story of these two sisters and their encounter with the bear. You feel for both sisters, trying to do the right thing for their mother, and still hold on to their dreams and some semblance of a life. They had a tough childhood experience with a boyfriend of their mom’s that scarred them but tightened their bond. But Elena is keeping secrets from Sam and their differing reactions to the bear only make things worse. It’s very atmospheric and tense and I was gripped to the very last page.
I’m a sucker for a good fractured fairy tale, and this contemporary Snow White & Rose Red retelling does not disappoint. Sisters Sam and Elena always dreamed of a better life for themselves, but they are stuck in their grandmother’s house in Friday Harbor, a depressed tourist town in Washington state. Taking turns as caretaker to their terminally ill, co-dependent mother, their vision has always been that once their mother passes, they will be able to sell their home and move on to their own destinies in Seattle or California… but there is a lot of waiting in this book. When the time comes, it turns out the house isn’t worth what they thought–a shock to Sam, but Elena knew–and anyway, Elena doesn’t want to go anywhere, and seems satisfied with the impoverished, dull life they lead, resulting in significant disagreement.
Struggling to recover from a post-pandemic economic downturn, both Sam and Elena do work catering to tourists, but Elena has the cushier job serving at the golf club, while Sam is stuck in food service on the tiny galley of the ferry. Elena gets the hot guys, while Sam screws coworker Ben in the head, keeping it sex-only, allowing a relationship that could develop into something real to stagnate, instead. The sister’s conflict escalates when Elena becomes obsessed with a bear that seems to be making a home for itself in the local woods.
Elena sees this dangerous alpha predator as some noble creature, a thing of power and beauty, a symbol that she is on the right path, and something that she has a special bond with, and thus can tame. Sam recognizes the bear as a threat, to their lives, their relationship, to their home–and enlists support from the local sheriff’s office, who refers the Department of Fish and Wildlife to the case. The agent, Madeline, advises Sam and her sister to stay away, and not to feed the bear. Elena doesn’t listen, even when threatened with fines, jail time, possible death and dismemberment. She’s enthralled.
Phillips masterfully executes atmosphere and tone in the bleakness of the sister’s lives, hopelessness of escaping their and inevitableness of repeating the mistakes of one’s parents, juxtaposed against the natural setting, both sea and shore, and the terror of a bear snuffling around their flimsy cottage. The narrative focuses on depressed, volatile Sam–her voice is refreshing, and her character and actions complex. Threaded throughout is the language of fairy tales: poisoned apples, roses and thorns, curses, villains whose wrath can shake an entire house, Sam’s Cinderella-like scrubbing to scour the house of death when their mother passes away. The homage to the original lesser-known tale of Snow White and Rose Red is skillfully woven in: an excerpt from the original prefaces the story to remind us that the mother endorses the bear.
Elena’s choices to pursue a demon lover examines how history repeats itself and how children replicate the mistakes of their parents–we are more comfortable with the devil we know than the unfamiliar angel. The entire novel could be viewed as a warning for women against men we know are not just bad, but deadly for us. Timely, given the viral “I’d rather be alone in the woods with a bear than a man” meme that took over the Internet in spring 2024.
I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #Bear via #NetGalley courtesy of #RandomHouse.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing House for this early review copy.
This book had its ups and downs. I enjoyed the relationship of the sisters it started off with, but then as it grew more complicated, I really struggled to enjoy their relationship and where the story was going. You learn as the story goes on that what you're initially presented with as their personalities isn't truly who they are. It was almost reverse character growth and development for me, which I suppose is something I'm not used to. I kind of saw some version of the ending coming, but it was still shocking!
This is a literal adult fairy tale, and it was such a unique reading experience in a good way. I feel like when I saw the "sell" of this book it had something about Snow White and Rose Red which is definitely something that would have drawn me in. While it was a fairy tale, it was set in present day (I always think of fairy tales as being "old"), and it's really also just about sisters trying to figure out life. There is a literal bear that plays all kinds of roles in the story, but it's also just two sisters figuring out how to manage all the "stuff" that happens to them together and apart. The emotions were raw and real, but there's also that layer of magic here, too. This was unlike anything I've read, and again, that's a good thing. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this June 2024 release!
I requested this book because I visit the San Juan islands to go camping every year and was excited to see a book set there! Phillips did a great job of building the place out and showing the mundanity of Sam’s work on the ferry.
What lost me was just about everything else. I did not care for the short, clipped writing in simple and repetitive sentences. It made the book feel more juvenile than it was marketed as and stopped me from connecting with the characters. It’s promoted as “a dark fairy tale” but that sense doesn’t fully develop until the last half or more of the book. The first third was fairly boring, just laying out a sense of place and the characters and yet I still didn’t feel any sense of darkness building.
By the last couple vignettes of this book, the inevitable ending began to materialize in my mind and the story took on a thriller sense to it. I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve liked this better if indeed the darkness had been pushed and the story set up more like a thriller than literary fiction. The sisters repeatedly talk about feeling trapped in that house and that took on an almost Gothic tone.
By the end, the characters had changed and my idea of who the villain truly was surprised me! <SPOILER> As Sam starts to unravel and become obsessed with making her sister “return” to her, you start to wonder if she is unreliable as a narrator and has actually remembered their promises to one another with her own bent or perception rather than what happened or even as Elena intended. I do think it was crucial to show how Elena had kept secrets from Sam to illustrate her duplicitousness in order to cast serious doubt on her true behavior with the bear.
I liked the overall concept of this story but the weak writing at sentence level ultimately turned me against it. I would recommend this book to fans of Brothers Grimm story tales, close sister relationships, and anyone else drawn to stories set in the PNW. Thank you to Net Galley and Hogarth for the eARC.
I just had such a hard time with this book. I didn't end up finishing it. Didn't care for the sisters. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
What an interesting book! So well written and engaging. Not something I would normally pick up, but I'm glad I got to read it!
Thank you NetGalley and Julia Phillips!
The book/plot, if placed on a graph, would steadily decrease downward. I loved her first book and this book had an interesting premise and a great beginning of a fraught sister relationship & the authors love of nature on the islands off Seattle showed. However, by the middle, it felt like not much happened and no character development, just the reiteration of the same feelings and the main characters stunted emotional development due to teenage emotional trauma. The parts I liked: the setting & its rich descriptions, and the bear itself. The part I didn't like" the ending that swiftly ended the book.
This was not for me. I thought the story about the sisters was beautiful and moving but the bear in the story was too much for me. I also really did not care for the ending in this one. Think I am learning maybe literary fiction is not my favorite. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.
Such a well-told tragic story of up-close daily life in most of America. I was engrossed in this story from cover to cover! While I thoroughly enjoyed it - and am sure that you will too - after finishing it, I was left wanting a bit more. What exactly was missing I'm not sure. The sister bond is a major focal point of this story. I do not have that experience, so maybe it will read differently for someone that does. This is almost a Grimm Fairy Tale version of Frozen's Anna and Elsa. The way it would have played out in real-life, in modern America.
In the end, I'm really left wondering what was real and what was perceived and how our experiences and "rules" for living shape so much of our future outcomes.
I wanted to love Bear. The premise sounded like it would be filled with magic and mystery and complicated family dynamics. It delivered on that last element, it not really the others- or much else that resonated with me, for that matter. I found the characters more frustrating than sympathetic. But if you’re looking for a quiet, somewhat dark read, it might be for you.
Thank you Julia Phillips, Hogarth, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.
Bear was another excellent novel by Julia Phillips. I loved the fairy tale retelling and the exploration of the relationship between the sisters.
This is a clear case of too high expectations for me, given that I loved the author's debut so much.
Although 'Bear' does some of the same things as 'Disappearing Earth', it didn't feel as captivating. One reason may be the structure: where Disappearing Earth told different stories all loosely related to a kidnapping and having the reader puzzle and look for clues, 'Bear' is a much more straightforward narrative about the close relationship between two sisters, caring for their dying mother and making ends meet by working their butts off.
It definitely held my interest though and I found the theme of 'us against the world (right?)' interesting to explore, but it's not a novel I would recommend as a must-read.