This novel is set on an island off the coast of Washington state. Main character Sam and her older sister Elena grew up there without much money living with their single mom, and always dreamed of escaping, but since their mom got sick they were stuck there working menial jobs and trying to take care of her, and are now both in their late 20s. And then a bear arrives on the island and starts coming around their house, and Sam is terrified but Elena is excited and entranced.

Sadly this one was a bit of a miss for me. I thought the writing was good but that was about all I liked. I didn’t like either Sam or Elena, who were both just annoying characters and who seemed way more immature than their age. I didn’t get the significance or meaning of the bear - if it was a metaphor it’s one that went over my head. And I REALLY didn’t like the ending. That being said, I’ve seen a lot of reviews that loved this one including from trusted reader friends. Luckily the friend I buddy read with agreed with me though!

Sadly this didn't work for me. Overall I just found it to be very lackluster: nothing about it stood our in any particular way. The writing was fine, the plot was fine, the characters were fine. There wasn't much that made me want to keep reading this, unfortunately.

This book was very slow and anti climactic. Over halfway into the book still all that had happened was two sisters see a bear. I think this all could have come together much quicker. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This was very thought provoking and stuck with me for a long time after reading. I was slightly disappointed as I loved Julia Phillips debut so much, but this was definitely not bad. I will be recommending this to readers!

The Bear is for readers who like super sad and depressing reads. I had a hard time getting into the book but by the end, I was reading it a bit quicker. The author's writing is a 5/5 and want to read other things she has out!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

The setting on Bear is what won the day for me. I loved getting to know these sisters but I truly most loved getting to visit the San Juan Islands again!

This book was simple in its story and so amazingly complex in its interpretation. What a feat of remarkable storytelling!

Captivating, complex and poignant. I teared up a few times. The ending felt unnecessary and did take away some of my appreciation for the book, because I really enjoyed it all until then.

Bear by Julia Phillips is a literary fiction read about two sisters living in the Pacific Northwest, who encounter an unexpected visitor in their yard. I think this book is overall well written and the audiobook narrator did an excellent job, however I simply could not get into the story. I did not feel connected to either of the sisters and didn't seem to really pick up on the deeper points/conversations I think the author was trying to make. Overall, this read was boring to me, but it could still be a good fit for readers who like a slow burn literary fiction that makes one think.

***The author of Disappearing Earth offers a story of bleak prospects, poverty and illness, a sister bond with fault lines ready to crack open, and a slow build to a destructive end.***

Along with their ill, bedridden mother, young-adult sisters Sam and Elena struggle to get by on an island off the coast of Washington.

Frustrated by the challenge of supporting themselves on Sam's pay from driving the tourist ferry and Elena's job bartending, the sisters dream of escaping to somewhere new.

But when Sam spots a grizzly bear swimming alongside the ferry--a bear that then shows up near their home--she is terrified. Elena chooses to see the bear as a sign of something positive, and she begins drawing the bear in with food and believing she is safe in its presence.

A wildlife expert offers assistance but threatens to drive a wedge between the sisters, and Sam is torn between wanting to protect her sister from this terrifying, deadly creature (and, jealously, wanting to destroy the bond Elena is feeling with it) and wanting to trust Elena's instincts and allow her to feel wonder like she has never experienced.

Their mother is failing, the bear is beginning to destroy their home, Elena is increasingly convinced of her connection with the beast, and Sam is shocked to her core when Elena seems to be abandoning the long-held plan of eventually leaving the San Juan islands with Sam.

The bear is a lumbering, drooling, stinking metaphor for the brutal truths set to implode Sam and Elena's lives. Sam has always believed she and Elena were a lifelong team, about to spring to freedom, whereas Elena never realized the half-truths and comfort she murmured to Sam when they were young have been taken as truth, against all evident clues to their grim financial status and how stuck Elena feels. Sam has always kept herself emotionally distant from anyone outside the household, believing this to be loyalty, but comes to understand that Elena has secretly been building bonds all along. Everything Sam has stubbornly understood to be true and real is suddenly coming unfurled and undone.

I took a really long time--unusual for me--to read this book, all the while dreading what feels like inevitable destruction barreling toward the sisters. The bear does ultimately shift everything for their family, and the story is brutal in its climax, yet glimmers of hope do emerge.

I mentioned Julia Phillips's fascinating novel Disappearing Earth in the Greedy Reading List Six Chilly Books to Read in the Heat of Summer.

I received a prepublication edition of this title, which was published earlier this summer, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House.

I think this book takes itself too serious. The narrator is obnoxiously immature and I was way too bogged down in unnecessary details and description. A bear showed up in Washington...shocker? I think a short story covers this better than a 300+ page novel.

Set on an island off the coast of Washington, Bear follows two sisters spending their days working dead-end jobs and caring for their ailing mother. That is, until a bear turns up outside of their home and upends their lives. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this quiet, captivating story and the powerful ending tied it all together. This beautifully written novel examines the bonds of sisterhood, the wonders of nature, and the pain of grief and change.

I really enjoyed Phillips's Disappearing Earth, so I had high hopes for this novel. Unfortunately, it didn't grab me.

The narrative surrounding the two sisters at the heart of the novel, Sam and Elena, didn't have much meat to it. With the focus almost always on Sam, we didn't really get much detail about what Elena was feeling, particularly her obsession with the bear. I wanted more in-depth discussions/interactions between the sisters. I kept thinking, "But why is she so obsessed with the bear? What's driving this connection?" Even th novel's frankly odd ending didn't clarify things.

Phillips's writing is as gorgeous as ever, but the lackluster storyline and shocking but unfulfilling ending don't match her talents. I'm absolutely going to read her next novel, but this one was a disappointment.

Thanks, Hogarth, for the review copy via NetGalley and @PRHAudio for the #gifted audiobook. #PRHAudioPartner #sponsored

“Sam and her sister, Elena, dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington, where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. When a bear turns up by their home, Sam, terrified, is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast.”

I loved the cover and the concept, but the story was not a good fit for me as a reader. The unrelenting sadness, the selfishness of the younger sister, Sam, the secretiveness of the older sister, Elena, and the permeating sickness of their dying mother all added up to too much gloom and misery for me.

The bear was a magical element, but I kept wanting more. I constantly watched for clues about who or what was behind the bear’s “mask.”

Such a good read that I enjoyed! I'm so glad that I got the chance to read it early and will definitely be recommending it to multiple people who enjoy these types of novels. I enjoyed the characters and especially enjoyed the writing by this author. I'm excited to see what the author comes out with next as I'll definitely be reading it! Thank you to the publisher for my early copy of this book!

Julia Phillips has written another fantastic novel which celebrates sisterhood. The two young women live on an island off the coast of Washington where Sam works on a ferry and Elena is a bartender in town. They are scraping to get by but don't want to lose the house where they grew up with their mother and each other. The author asks us to suspend belief as Elena sees, speaks to and hears a bear that has crossed her path in the woods. She is enthralled with the bear but her sister Sam much less. Sam sees it as dangerous and destructive.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for this ARC. This review is entirely my own opinion.

Two 20-something sisters feel trapped on San Juan Islands, Washington as they work dead-end jobs & care for their dying mother. That is, until a near-mystical bear appears inspiring hope and terror. Phillips ably portrays the feelings off isolation and frustration, but also the disconnect between family members. Based on the Snow White, Rose Red myth.
"

A beautifully written book! I absolutely loved the PNW setting and the story of Sam and Elena. While I know it was a fairytale retelling, to me the bear represented pain, death, and grief, and I saw so much of myself in both Sam and Elena in different ways. This is a sad and heavy book (based off the Grimm fairytale, not the Disney version) but it was so beautifully done that I couldn't put it down and it will stay with me for quite a long time.

"That was back when she pictured pain as something swift and final. She understood better now, what it actually was--not a glass dropped onto a tile floor, one terrible burst, but a tree required to grow over years in a space that limited it. Branches curled in on themselves, leaves drooping. A living thing that was forced, relentlessly, to submit."

I can't recall where I first saw this book. I was not approached by the publisher, I don't recall reading any other reviews of it. I can only assume that I found it myself on Netgalley. I would have been drawn immediately to that beautiful cover and then, I assume, to a story about sisters. A look at other reviews will show you that responses to this book are all over the place, much as are my thoughts about the book. Here we have one of those books where I wonder if I just didn't "get" something, where I felt like I needed to spend some time with my thoughts before I decided how I felt about it.
There's a lot to unpack here. There's an element of the fairytale here. In fact, the book opens with a line from the fairytale Snow White and Rose Red:
“‘Poor bear,’ said the mother, ‘lie down by the fire, only take care that you do not burn your coat.’”
This line is equally appropriate:
"The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow-white said: ‘We will not leave each other,’ Rose-red answered: ‘Never so long as we live,’ and their mother would add: ‘What one has she must share with the other.’"
At least, it has long been Sam's impression that she and Elena would never be parted, that each of them was the only person the other could trust. It's an impression partly ingrained by the ways life has treated the sisters; but also because of what Elena told Sam years ago, when she told Sam that, when their mother died, the two of them would sell the land and home their grandmother bought and leave San Juan Island. Sam has lived for ten years with the promise that there is hope in her future, that the half million dollar selling price of the land will assure the sisters of a bright future, a chance to put the traumas of their past and a mountain of debt behind them.

But the bear's arrival begins to expose buried feelings and secrets. Elena finally feels alive and, once again, in touch with the land that fed her soul and helped her survive over the years. In Sam, the bear's arrival raises fear to the surface, not just because of what the threat the bear physically poses but also a because it presents the threat of a rift between Sam and Elena. That fear, coupled with the distrust of authorities so deeply engrained in Sam, causes mounting conflict between the sisters.

It's hard to find a character in this book that you can attach yourself to, but it's also easy to see how each of them became the person they are now. As the daughters of a woman who works in a nail salon, the wealthier children in town look down on them; as the survivors of an abuser brought into their home by their own mother and whom the system did not protect, they had only each other to turn to; as the caregivers to a dying mother, the sisters are forced to find jobs straight out of high school, jobs that might just pay the bills were it not for their mother's medical bills.

As the oldest, Elena has always been the one to take charge and she has had to take on not only the care of their mother and a full-time job, but she has also become the person in charge of trying to keep things afloat. Sam moves through life in a bit of a haze, bidding her time for the day she can leave the island and refusing to make any connects with other people who might hurt her. In the end, it's Elena who hurts her; even so, Sam is willing to do whatever it takes to bring Elena back to her with tragic consequences.

And there, you see, as I thought more about the book, it became clearer to me. Unlike those who either disliked the book or those who loved it, I find myself falling somewhere in between. The Pacific Northwest is vivid and it's hard to imagine wanting to leave it. Phillips has created a unique story, to be sure; it might even be one I'm thinking about long after this. But I so often wanted to just shake both of the sisters, wanted them to be honest with each other, to stop making stupid mistakes; I struggled with believing that anyone could be so oblivious to the danger as Elena was; and I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about the ending.

expected a lot more with all the fantastical elements that were being presented in this but it just ended up being okay.