Sam and Elena are sisters, struggling to make ends meet and care for their dying mother, on San Juan Island in Washington State. Sam works on a ferry, in a mind numbingly boring job working the concessions stand, and one night she sees a bear swimming alongside the ferry, an uncommon sight. The bear begins making appearances on the island, including sitting on their front steps to their small home. As the summer wears on, the bears presence has a bigger impact on Sam and Elena's lives, causing a rift between the sisters.
The writing in this novel is lovely, told solely from Sam's perspective, the younger sister of the two, dreaming of the day when their mother has died and they can leave the island together and live a life with fewer responsibilities. That said, I kept waiting and waiting for something to happen, the climax felt like it was late to arrive. It was also quite frustrating only having Sam's perspective, although this is a stylistic choice by the author that I understand. I think overall, I just didn't really understand the message the author was trying to convey with Elena becoming some completely mystified and enamored with the bear, beyond the bear being the source of the conflict and division between the sisters. I also felt sad for Sam that she so clearly misunderstood everyone around her.
For me, I think maybe this book just wasn't quite right, but perhaps I wasn't the right reader to get the message the author was giving.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

Sam and her sister Elena live with their terminally ill mother on an island in the Pacific Northwest.
Each works multiple jobs, struggling to survive. The dream they both share is to one day leave the
island for a better life. The dream is in peril due to the appearance of a bear who is drawn to their
home. Elena becomes attached to the bear, finding comfort in his presence. Sam is terrified that
the bear is taking her sister away from her and seeks to end Elena's attachment. Will she succeed
in getting her sister to leave the island?
#Bear #RandomHouse #Hogarth #NetGalley

This book can best be described as powerful! I can say this is unlike anything I've read in recent memory. It leaves you with a lot to think about.

“Bear” is the story of two sisters in their later twenties living with their dying mother on San Juan Island. The story is told from the perspective of Sam, the younger sister; Elena, barely older, shoulders most of the responsibility for keeping the household in order. They struggle financially with marginal jobs—Sam works the concession on the ferry and Elena is a waitress at the golf club. From Sam’s perspective, the sisters have always been very close, holding no secrets from one another. While Elena negotiates the outside world effectively, Sam has always struggled. She is resentful of everyone around her, whom she perceives as having more advantages. She has maintained a very insular existence, which has led her to being closed-minded and immature beyond her years. These qualities are only amplified after a grizzly bear, which swam from the mainland, arrives literally on their doorstep. While Elena is in awe of the bear and delights at (and encourages) subsequent encounters, Sam is full of fear, which elicits anger and frustration. The bear becomes a wedge between the sisters, and Sam is determined not to allow it to interfere with the future for which she has lived for years—that once their mother passes, they will leave the island for a much better life elsewhere. I was a bit perplexed during much of the novel—where was it going, why was Sam behaving so irrationally? In Sam, Phillips has created a deeply flawed but believable character. However, I could not sympathize with her perspective, and, in the end, I do not feel richer for having “met” her.

I received an advance reader copy from Penguin Random House/Hogarth in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: Mystical/Domestic Fiction
Publisher: Random House
Pub. Date: June 25, 2024

The novel “Bear” begins with a preface from the fairytale “Snow White and Rose Red” by the Brothers Grimm. “Poor bear, said the mother, lie down by the fire, only take care that you do not burn your coat.” In the fable, there is a poor widow with two daughters: Snow White is the quieter and gentler of the two, while Rose Red is more adventurous. This novel also follows two sisters on present-day San Juan Island, Wash. In the fable, the mother lives a long life. Here, the mother is terminally ill. The author’s prose in this modern fairy tale is vivid as she tackles the complications of sisterhood in the face of life-changing experiences.
The two sisters are in their twenties and separated by only one year. They are unusually close. Sam, who represents Rose Red, is the younger sister. Elena is the Snow White character. The novel begins with a realistic portrayal of the sisters’ difficulties caring for their dying mother. There are only minimum-wage jobs on the island. The author gives us vivid descriptions of the working poor. We feel that the girls are trapped by their love for their mother. Their dream has always been to sell the house and leave the island once they can. Their plan changes when a wild grizzly bear swims to the island and appears at their front doorstep. Phillips weaves fantasy into reality here, and a dark fairytale emerges.

Sam fears the bear, but Elena responds differently to the animal. Its presence enchants her. When she and the bear begin a strange, almost courtship-like friendship, I was reminded of the film “The Shape of Water.” Tension builds when Elena is no longer keen on leaving the island due to her relationship with the creature. The sisters begin to distance themselves from each other. I read the bear as a metaphor for the future of the sisters’ lives. One stays on the island, and the other leaves for a more exciting life. I’m guessing that “Bear” is also a version of “Beauty and the Beast” with an unnerving ending. If I say more, it would be a spoiler.

In the Brothers Grimm fable, the moral is that good girls will get married and live happily ever after. I believe the moral of “Bear” is never to waste your life looking for a handsome prince. The author left me wondering if Elena’s relationship with the grizzly is an inappropriate obsession or if she befriended the bear benevolently, as Jane Goodall has done with apes. I am unsure when Sam calls animal control if it’s out of concern for her sister or jealousy of the grizzly. I am curious if other readers will also be left with questions. This book is out of my comfort zone. Although the writing is beautiful, and I enjoyed the novel more than I thought I would, I recommend “Bear” for folktale lovers only.

Bear

I really wanted to like this book. I was immediately drawn to the characters and loved the way they were initially presented. The magical bear appearing to Sam as it swam to their island was wonderful as it showed up the next morning to poop on their property. But it seemed like the two sisters lost it about 1/3 of the way into the book. The more logical older sister went round the bend trying to befriend the bear, I’m sorry, but that made zero sense. With the younger less logical sister flip flopping constantly in her decisions it felt like the author mixed the two characters. All the characters—the two sisters and the two men they were paired with, made bad decision after bad. I finished the book but was speed reading near the end just to get through it. The over the top symbolism near the end felt forced and over dramatic. It felt like an interesting idea that was jumbled up and missed the target.

I would like to thank NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

Ok, wow.

I have to give this book a 5-star read because it's unlike anything I've read. I love when I discover books that have such unusual premises that even after having read thousands of books, I can still be really surprised.

On the surface, Bear is the story of two siblings who live on a Pacific Northwest island, taking care of their ill mom and working at dead-end underpaying jobs to pay the medical bills. But underneath, there's so so much more going on. Sam has been waiting for the day that she and Elena can stop having to take care of their mother, sell their house and move off the island, as Elena promised years ago.

And then a bear shows up at their house. And the two sisters have wildly different reactions to the bear. We only see everything from Sam's perspective and her alarm grows and grows, causing a greater wedge between her and her sister and she feels it's imperative that she resolve the situation before all their dreams go up in smoke.

And, of course, of course things are not as they might seem to Sam. And, of course, of course things don't go as planned.

This is a powerful novel unlike any other. I loved it.

with gratitude to netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Rounding up from 4.5 stars. This book confirms Julia Phillips as an aut0-read author for me! The prose is beautiful and mesmerizing. I love the spin she puts on these fairytale archetypes. Weird, quirky novels with unforgettable characters and big themes told in a quiet way always suck me in and Bear is undeniably that! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced digital copy,

This book checks so many boxes for me. I love how this book is so rooted in fairy tale archetypes and flips everything on its head. I don’t want to reveal too much to avoid spoilers—for sure, go in as blind as possible for this one—but the ending was a delicious turn.

Bear (2024)
By Julia Phillips
Hogarth, 304 pages.
★★★★

“Snow-White and Rose-Red” is a German folk tale that’s not the same story as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” though it does involve a dwarf. Also a ferocious bear and two young girls. I mention this because author Julia Phillips draws upon it for her page-turning modern tale set on San Juan Island in Washington State.

Hold the dwarf, but Bear is likewise about a bruin, two sisters, and a single mother. From there, Phillips allows her imagination to roam to construct an alternative narrative. Sisters Elena and Sam have been so close for so long that it’s as if they share a brain stem. As they edge toward their thirties they discuss leaving the island. It’s a major tourist area–especially for spotting orcas–but with a permanent population of under 8,000 there are not a lot of opportunities for locals. San Juan Island reminded me of the contrast between coastal Maine and its interior. That is, the wealth is in the hands of summer residents and visitors to the coast whilst those providing services live close to the margin.

Elena and Sam tend to their dying mother, her illness probably linked to chemicals she ingested at work. You can imagine how hard it is to hold such a household together. Elena is a bartender/waitress at the golf club and Sam’ works on the ferry that is the only way on and off the island. Sam depends a lot on tips, as she works for a food vendor, not the state. (Read no benefits, low wages.) Elena is calm and organized, whereas Sam is restless, a loner, and so bored that she routinely has sex with a guy in which she’s only marginally interested.

In one trip across the strait Sam spots an amazing phenomenon: a bear swimming beside the boat. That’s weird because there are no bears on any of the more than 170 islands in the San Juan archipelago. She’s pretty sure it’s a carnivorous grizzly, which would be more unusual still, as Washington has very few brown bears. When the bear is seen again outside their house, Madeline, a state wildlife official, assures them it’s almost certainly a lost black bear. Her advice is the standard response: avoid the bear, secure all garbage, and don’t feed it as a fed bear is ultimately a dead bear.

Madeline is wrong; it is a grizzly. Sam is terrified, but when Elena views the bear, she sees the glories of nature. Nor is she frightened by it; in her magical thinking, the bear is beautiful and a good luck talisman. Sam insists that Elena get rides to her job, advice routinely ignored as she enjoys walking in the woods. She’s not just fascinated with the bear, she’s obsessed by it.

Bear is a metaphor for numerous things, including the secrets Elena and Sam keep from one another, the gap between the masks they wear and internal clashing aspirations, and the anguish of forging independent personalities. On a deeper level it’s a tale of civilization and wildness, what we really see versus what we wish to see, and freedom. Who is trapped? What boundaries should be obeyed and which ones ignored? What is the price of escape?

I zipped through this book is two sittings. Much of that is due to Phillips’ sparkling prose and her sense of knowing when to make the plot scurry and when to allow it to graze. It also engrosses if you allow yourself to embrace mythopoetic storytelling and remind yourself that even adapted folk tales have morals. In my view, those readers who have complained about its ending forget that Bear is a fantasy that relies on character types. There is no “real” Elena, Sam, or bear. But who among us has never felt trapped or had to wrestle with the decision of whether to embrace or flee?

Rob Weir

Right from the start, Bear had my attention. It was a window into a place- an island off the Washington coast- and into the lives of two sisters struggling with caring for their mother, making ends meet, and facing the daily monotony of work and home routine. Until a bear shows up on their front stoop and shakes things up for these sisters and the community. Beautiful, and at times gritty and graphic, this story is a ride through inevitable sadness and out the other side to what remains.

This is a delightfully weird book about two sisters in the Pacific Northwest and their encounters with a grizzly bear. It's unexpected and weird and I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #HogarthBooks for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a review. Reading "Bear" was a very different experience from Julia Phillips' debut novel "Disappearing Earth" but both shared some dark similarities and a mesmerizing blend of other-worldliness and community. Another similarity--one that Phillips does so incredibly well--is her depiction of the mystical and irreplaceable bond of sisters.

The tone was set from the very beginning of "Bear" with a foreboding quote from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Snow-White and Rose-Red.”
A quote about two sisters and a bear.

Sam, the novel's narrator, lives with her older sister, Elena, and their mother (who has been slowly and painfully dying from a work-related (environmental) cancer over many years. When the novel begins, the sisters, now in their late 20s, are both working tourism-related/service industry jobs and barely making ends meet between low wages and mounting hospital bills. It is made clear by Sam that the sisters' "ticket out" of their shared dead end life on their small island will involve the sale of their family home (secured by a grandmother years before) and the coveted land on which it's situated.

We, as readers, reside within the mind of younger sister Sam for the entirety of the novel and there are many fairy tale elements (particularly in the magical thinking Sam inhabits of a better life ahead, just her and her sister, once the home is sold). When an enormous bear appears, seemingly out of nowhere, in the water alongside the ferry where Sam vends food and drinks to tourists., their circular lives begin to take a crazy turn.

This is a post-pandemic world and the area is slowly rebounding (and heavily reliant upon travel and service positions) on an island off the Washington state coast. The arrival of the bear seems like a strange anomaly until shortly later when it shows up, in all of its fierce enormity, on the doorstep of the sisters' home. They are initially both thrilled and terrified but as the story continues, Sam grows to fear and loathe the bear, seeing it as a physical threat and, importantly, a force of destruction in her relationship with Elena.

Elena, however, has spent years taking care of her mother and, to a lesser degree, has acted as a pseudo-mother to Sam. The older sister becomes enamored by the bear, developing a fairytale-like relationship with it. The closer she gets to the bear, the more determined Sam becomes to eliminate its threat.

The tension stays high all the way through. It's a compulsive read and an ode to the old-school darkness of the Brothers Grimm. Julia Phillips is a magical writer. The book will be available 6/25/2024.

This is the story of two young girls, growing up at the edge of a forest on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, barely able to afford shelter and food, and caring for their dying mother. Now in their 20’s, and still terrorized by the memory of their mother’s former live-in boyfriend, they believe that they can trust no one in their determination to escape their oppressive lives. They’re not overtly hoping that a knight in shining armor will come to rescue them, but real life has become so unbearable, that perhaps in their imagination, a newly arrived beast appears to be a prince. This captivating novel by Julia Phillips is reminiscent in several ways of a Grimm’s fairytale, especially in that it is impossible to stop reading, despite its frightening story - which is likely what the author intended.

Phillips does not overwhelm the reader with fantastical phenomenon, but weaves what appear to be ordinary, though unusual, events into the tale, and leaves it up to readers to infer any fabled meaning. This very unique book is charming but also horrifying, contemporary but also timeless, and so beautifully written that it will mesmerize readers at whatever level they are interested in experiencing this story of love, survival, perseverance and dreams.

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House/Hogarth for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful, heartfelt, painful portrait of two sisters stuck in lives of drudgery and their entirely different ways of being in the world. Sam is the younger of the two and somewhat impulsive, a little cranky, perpetually dissatisfied with her place in the world. Elena is in charge but mostly even-tempered and accepting. Their mother is ill, probably from her years of inhaling toxic chemicals from performing pedicures and manicures, and is slowly dying. Each day is a struggle to make ends meet, with both girls working at low-wage jobs and Elena trying to stretch their dollars to cover medical bills, the mortgage, and everything else they need.

And then a bear enters their life. They live on a remote island near Seattle and the presence of a bear is a rare thing, since they have little choice but to swim there. But it is not unheard-of for a brown bear to make his or her way to the island during mating season in search of love. This bear, though, is enormous, and seems to be particularly attracted to the house the girls share with their mother.

Sam is terrified of the bear and wants nothing more than for it to go away, but Elena is fascinated by it, the sheer size and strength she sees in its body and limbs. She begins to court encounters with the bear and it seems to respond to her overtures. Sam views the bear as a threat not only to their physical well-being but to the closeness the sisters have always had, but their connection seems to be changing and shifting as they mature out of their adolescent dreams and face the reality of their rather bleak lives.

I need not point out the metaphorical power of an unruly, unpredictable beast appearing in the midst of lives in turmoil. This could have been overbearing in less capable hands, but Phillips is masterful in her evocation of lives in transition and the forces completely outside their control that shape these women. Clearly written from a posture of grief and pain, there is great courage and compassion in these pages.

Bear by Julia Phillips is about sisters who are taking care of their very ill mother in a house that is almost big enough for them. It is about people, but it is also about wildlife that should not be interacting with people. Sam and Elena are the children of a single mom and they have learned to take care of each other as much or more than adults in their lives.

They live on San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest. Elena works at a nearby country club as a server and Sam works on a ferry in the food service department. They can barely make ends meet with their combined incomes, but add the medical bills from their mother’s illness and they do not come close.

The sisters find a bear on their front porch one morning, the bear had scratched the siding and made a hole. This was very scary for them and hard to believe considering that they are on an island. The bear would have had to swim from the mainland. It would need to swim again to get off the island.

The author reveals some great information about how to react when faced with a bear, and more importantly how not to. The story will draw readers in and make them join the sisters’ family. It is well worth the time spent reading especially since it is so well written that you won’t notice how quickly time has passed.

Thanks to Netgalley for the prepublication copy to read and review.

An interesting story about two girls in their twenties who live together and take care of their ailing mother. The girls are very dedicated to their mother and each other but don’t really seem to have friends. Elena, the older sister, shoulders most of the responsibilities although both girls work and care for their mother.
Things change when the girls wake to find a large bear sleeping on their doorstep. Both girls are fascinated by the encounter but especially Elena. The story follows the two sisters, their mother’s health and the effect that the bear’s presence has on their lives.
The story is definitely not light hearted. I enjoyed the descriptions of the nature that they encountered but the story is difficult subject matter.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. Most of this book reminded me of a fairy tale like story until the end which kinda threw me up from the romantic atmosphere of the book. I was kinda horrified by the ending actually and had to take a couple days to think about it. I'm still not quite sure about how I feel about the book. It's definitely different. The relationships between the two sisters and their mother is also quite complex.

NetGalley was right to allow me access to an ARC of this book because I tend to like literary fiction. But this was just... I'm not sure what it is.

I think my main gripe about the book was that there was a lot going on about people that I just couldn't care less about. I tried. I stuck around long enough to see a bear. But even that was the most boring fiction about a bear ever written. Gosh, I wanted this to be interesting. With a bold title of simply "Bear" you'd think it would have been. Oh well.

At least the writing was decent.

If you like slow literary stories about family and just about nothing else, you might actually like this. Just prepare for poop.

This was my first book by Julia Phillips and her writing is flawless. This was a very intriguing read for me, not something I normally gravitate towards. I’m so glad I picked it up. It took me 2 days to finish, was engaging and beautifully tragic. At its core, Bear is a sad story centered on family ties and grief. The bond of sisterhood and mother/daughter relationships is central, with the mythical element of the Bear also stealing the show. I loved how the author pieced together the story. Sam and Elena’s relationship is beautiful, relatable and ultimately, so tragic and devastating. Bear is told entirely in 3rd person and from Sam’s point of view in a haunting way.

The only thing that could have made this story even better, would have been to get more of Elena’s point of view. It didn’t take away from the beauty of the writing though. I loved it and finished with a broken heart and heavy feelings. Highly recommend!!