A beautiful novel with staying power. It humanizes challenges far too many families are quite familiar with - medical debt, underpaid jobs with little room for advancement, and a wish for more from life. I'm grateful I had the chance to read it.

Sam and Elena dream of another life. They live on an island off the coast of Washington where their greatest struggle is financial survival. They barely have enough to manage their living expenses, particularly for the care of their seriously ill mother who lives with them is seriously ill. Their only income comes from Sam’s job as a server on a local ferry and Elena’s job as a bartender at the local golf club. When a bear is spotted swimming in the channel that surrounds their island, their lives suddenly change. Soon the bear is found wandering near their home and Sam is petrified and wants to leave the island immediately. Elena, on the other hand, wants to befriend the bear and puts their dream of leaving the island on hold.
A fantastic and beautifully written story about the bonding and love within a family and the mysteries surrounding the behavior of animals that we fear most.

'Bear', by Julia Phillips, is very, very different from her first novel, 'Disappearing Earth'. In no way does 'Bear' come up to the brilliance of Ms. Phillips' debut novel. The characterizations are weak and their inner lives are obscure and barely of interest. Some of the narrative is sensational and buried in myth but I wasn't able to feel a connection to either of the protagonists. The best part of this novel were the descriptions of the natural world on the island.

'Bear' is told from Sam's point of view. She is Elena's 28 year old sister, the younger of the two. They are the third generation to live on several acres of beautiful land on San Juan Island, off the coast of Washington. Sam hopes with all her heart that one day she and Elena will escape this island and live a fuller life somewhere else. After all, Sam estimates that the land their old and falling down house is built upon is worth around $500,000. She also thinks that Elena shares her dream of escaping the island. The only thing holding them back is their mother, who is very ill. While they lovingly care for her, they also dream of how her death will set them free from this house and this puny life.

Both sisters have jobs in the service industry. Sam works on the ferry, for a company that contracts with the Washington State Ferry system. Because she is employed by a contractor, she doesn't get any of the benefits that come with a state job. Elena is a waitress in a country club on their island.
They are constantly in debt, trying to make payments for their mother's medical bills and their own costs of living. They can never catch up. What made it even worse, is they had to struggle through the pandemic when both the ferry system and the country club barely functioned.

One day, off the side of the ferry, Sam sees a swimming bear that is headed towards her island. She is both enthralled and fearful. When they later see the bear in their yard, she is full of terror. Elena does not share Sam's fear. She becomes enamored of the bear and puts herself in dangerous circumstances just to be near the bear, her allegorical lover.

I started getting bored by the novel somewhere near the middle. Usually when this happens, I don't finish the book. However, I crawled through this one, page after page, until the end. I had the end figured out but it still threw me for a loop. Ms. Phillips has proven her enormous skill in 'Disappearing Earth' and I'm hoping she writes another novel of that caliber.

Elena and Sam navigate their life on San Juan, caring for their dying mother and getting by. The plan they hatched as children to manifest their own happy ending keeps them going. When a bear arrives on the island, subtle differences between the sisters' outlooks are revealed and tension develops between them. Suddenly, everything Sam thought she knew about the world, her sister, and herself is called into question. This beautifully written, evocative, gut-punch of a novel will appeal to fans of character-driven literary fiction and a strong sense of place.

Bear by Julia Phillips has a great setting on the San Juan Islands in Washington and a unique premise - a bear enters the life of two sisters. While there's this interesting exploration of sisterhood and the mystery surrounding the bear, overall, it left me feeling a bit deflated. It's slow-paced, and I found myself wanting more from it. I wish there was more from Elena's point of view.

It has its moments, but if you're after a non-depressing read, this might not be your best bet. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Ebook received for free through NetGalley

It wasn’t at all what I expected.. pictured more fairytale and fantasy. That said it was written well, gritty, real, sad, and beautiful. Glad I came across it though it doesn’t leave you with a happy feeling… but I guess that’s what an old school fairytale is.

The story of two sister in a small town struggling to care for their mother. A strange relationship develops between one sister and a bear in their hometown. This book left me feeling a bit off as it never really shared the bond between the sisters that I had hoped for.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC! This book quite honestly shook me to my core. “Bear” by Julia Phillips explores the lives of sisters Elena and Sam, who are barely scraping by as they work to take care of their sick mother and pay medical and mortgage bills that keep piling up. They dream of leaving their tiny island one day, and their close-knit sisterhood is what keeps narrator Sam afloat. One day, a grizzly bear arrives on their island, seemingly a stop on its annual swim to the Canadian coast, and seems to take a liking to the girls. The presence of the bear strikes fear into Sam and brings Elena joy in the midst of their issues, shedding light on secrets that lie between the two sisters.

I liked the unreliable narrator aspect of this story and the darkness that grew throughout the book, it kept me riveted until the ending that shocked me.

This is definitely a different type of book. It's a combination of fantasy, grief, fear and family.
Two sisters are living in their grandmothers old cottage with their terminally mother.
They both go to work and live in a boring, uninteresting world now post-pandemic.
Until.... They find a bear who is sitting at the front door. This creature appears harmless, although killing farm life at times.
What now? Do they get someone to relocate this big guy?

I enjoyed this story and needed to finish to find how it concludes and at times it was intense and so very real! Or was it?
You decide!

Thank you to @NetGalley and to`@Random HOuse Publishing Group for allowing me to read and provide my own review of this ARC.

I so enjoyed Julia Phillips's Disappearing Earth for its wonderful writing, fascinating structure, and clever storytelling, so I was eager to read her next novel. While the plot and structure of Bear are completely different, the sense that you are being led through the book by a masterful writer is still there, even when, as a reader, you're at a loss as to where you're heading.

There is an overwhelming sense of being trapped in this book. Sisters Sam and Elena live on an island, in the house where they grew up, and where their ill mother is virtually housebound because of her medical issues. They are struggling under the weight of the mounting bills -- medical bills, taxes, etc. -- that have been piling up due to their mother's condition and the pandemic, during which time Elena was the only one able to work. There are few options open to them, and for all of her adult life, Sam has stuck around knowing that their mother is dying and that when she passes, she and Elena can sell the land the house sits on and leave to start a new life elsewhere. And then one morning the sisters wake up and discover that there is a very large bear sitting just on the other side of their door.

The arrival of this bear throws Sam's plans entirely out the window as it wreaks havoc with her relationship with her sister, and the narrative takes a surprising turn, culminating in a twist you may not at all see coming (but no spoilers here!). The book is tense and sad but also strikes a cord with the feelings that so many of us experienced during the early days of COVID, when the future was so hazy and it was hard to plan for what came next.

Thank you to Random House/Hogarth and NetGalley for the ARC I received in return for an honest review. This book will be published June 25, 2024.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC.

This novel is about two sisters living with a sick mother trying to make the best of their lackluster jobs. Their lives are mundane and somewhat sad, until a bear appears at their home and changes their lives forever. The story continues to build, and I felt myself expecting more. The climax of the plot does not happen until very late in the book.

However, the book does capture the complicated relationship between sisters and all the emotions associated with sibling rivalry and age differences. While the prose is well written, I did not find the main character to have any redeemable qualities. I kept waiting and waiting for her to improve, but she never did.

a dark fairytale that delves into sisterhood and the mystery of beasts not only among us but within us

BEAR by JULIA PHILLIPS

Rating: 3.75🌟
Genre: literary fiction, quiet thriller

Bear is a novel that tells the story of two sisters and their encounters with a black bear. The two young women work to the bone to support their house on the island and their terminally ill mother with the hope that someday they can sell the home and finally get to live their lives and experience adventure.

Sisterhood is a big theme in this story and although I found the two girls odd and frustrating at times I still appreciated their bond. I did not however like the narrative. While it was interesting to watch things unfold, something about Sam, the younger of the sisters... quite a selfish and immature person, just bothered me. I just couldn’t form a connection, with either of them actually, but that is subjective. It just made it less enjoyable.

Then of course we have the bear 🐻 not as cute as the emoji when it shows up on your front porch! The sisters interpret the bears presence very differently and it was quite interesting to observe their perspectives. While one seemed protective and on edge, the other felt more elated and alive with each encounter, mesmerized and craving more. As time goes on, we watch changes unfold between the sisters’ relationship. A weird obsession develops and seems to slowly drive a wedge between the sisters.

I really didn’t know what to expect in this story but I think I liked it?? It’s not a “wow” factor novel but it did leave a mark and has given me some food for thought. The breezy and warm island atmosphere does little to conceal the disturbing and heartbreaking context and ending so reader beware, this is not a comfort read but rather one that will leave you thinking.

Thank you kindly to the author, publishers and NetGalley for this Advanced Readers Copy. This novel is set to release this summer in June!

This book was like a modern Grimm fairy tale-two sisters struggling to take care of their sick mother trapped in their small town, dealing with poverty and a monstrous bear in the wild who tears their relationship apart.
I found this story sad, terrifying and beautifully written. The wild ending was perfect and I loved every minute of it!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Julia Phillip’s Bear describes the realistic, contemporary problems of sisters caring for their dying mother, trapped by love and poverty. The family lives near a forest on an island with few job options. The younger sister, Sam, holds on to the childhood dream her sister Elena shared of selling the land and leaving the island after their mother’s death.

Their mother had masked the hardships of life when the sisters were girls. Their mom was beautiful and loving and joyful. They are committed to being home for her as her illness progresses and leaves her bedridden. Medical debts mount up while a lack insurance coverage leaves their mother without medicine for her pain. The girls’ service jobs cater to the rich tourists to their beautiful island. Sam bristles at their presumed superiority.

When a huge bear swims to the island and is found on the sisters’ porch, Sam is horrified but Elena, who had always been the more fearful, is mesmerized. Sam wants the bear gone, while Elena is enchanted by it and lures it closer, resulting in a divisive struggle as each sister seeks their own vision of salvation.

The story is an interesting riff on the fairy tale archetypes of sibling rivalry and the animal bridegroom, incorporating vivid and precise descriptions of the working poor with the desire to find transformation. For Sam, that means leaving and starting anew someplace with better opportunity, always united with her sister. Sam resists forging a full relationship with her coworker “with benefits”, trapped in the childhood pact made with Elena to stick together and get off the island. But Elena has encountered a sense of the mysterious other that enchants her. Even her secret boyfriend is unaware of Elena’s deep attraction to the dangerous entity that stalks her, and how deeply alive she felt in its presence.

The novel turns from realism to a dark irony with a grim conclusion.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Julia Phillips made a splash with her first novel, Disappearing Earth and returns with a novel again featuring a pair of sisters. And a bear who embodies the spirit of the natural world, Devoted but very different in temperament, the women live on the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, and where they and their ailing mother struggle to survive. The appearance of a large brown bear provokes fear in one, fascination in the other. What makes life worth living? How does one find joy? Highly recommended.

We live in western PA where we have an occasional bear sighting in a residential area. Usually no harm done except to knock over a bird feeder. Until a few weeks ago when a woman who lives about 3 miles from us (in a residential area) stepped out on her deck to take her little dog outside and met up with a mother black bear with 3 yearling cubs. The cubs were up a tree off the side of the deck but the mother bear still felt they were being threatened so she attacked the woman and gave her quite severe injuries. The woman and her dog were able to get away and get back in the house but she spent several weeks in the hospital with multiple surgeries to repair the damage. Unfortunately the mother bear was euthanized because she became aggressive with the game warden. The three yearlings were captured and released in a more appropriate area. So when this book appeared in my TBR list, I was immediately drawn to drop everything and read it. As I was reading I identified more with Sam than Elena. While bears fascinate me, I have no desire to get close to them or befriend them. I don't want to give away the plot so I'll just suggest you read it yourself and see if you are more like Sam or more like Elena.

In the Pacific Northwest, two hard-scrabble sisters living on an island try to come to terms with both the impending death of their beloved mother, and with the sudden appearance of dangerous wildlife threatening their home and their relationship, These circumstances force them into a wider circle of possible threats to their lifestyle, and each tries to cope in her own way, foreshadowing climactic tragedy, in this affecting family tale.

I was really looking forward to reading this new book by the author of Disappearing Earth. I enjoyed learning about the San Juan Islands. I found the story not believable. I did not like the character Sam. The writing style ejected me from the story several times.

Sam and her older sister Elena live in the San Juan Island chain off the coast of Washington state. Sam remembers their early childhood as idyllic, roaming the woods with her sister and living in a simple cottage with her mother and grandmother. Once adolescence begins and class divisions at school become hurtful Sam withdraws into family life and focuses on a shared dream of escaping the island with Elena once their sick mother dies and they are able to sell the family home.

Day after day as Sam circles the island chain in her job as a snack shop attendant on the local ferry line, she imagines this future and pins all of her hopes and ambitions to it. One day during the endless loop Sam sees something amazing, a bear swimming alongside the ferry. Where the animal has come from and where exactly it will settle becomes the talk of the town. Sightings begin on the sisters' island, even in the woods right beside their cottage. Wildlife experts believe that the bear will soon move on and warn the residents to report all encounters and to make sure that no food or garbage is left out to attract it. One sister becomes frightened of the destructive power of this interloper while the other is compelled by its majesty. This is a book that will resonate.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this novel.

Thank you for the ARC. This was somewhere around 3.5 star book for me. It is well-written and interesting, but the narrative felt like it was stretched too thin-- particularly because the ending seemed ordained from the moment the eponymous bear shows up! The story is slow, and the days of the main characters' are repetitive, so at times it felt like the plot dragged towards the inevitable conclusion. I also had a hard time connecting with the main character, as she seemed completely arrested by her family situation. I kept having to remind myself that she was supposedly a woman near 30, and not an 18 year old. However, the writing is beautiful, particularly the descriptions of the island where the family lives, and the family dynamics were interesting. I just think that this could've been written as a powerful short story instead.