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.

I'm on a streak of DNFing book, so maybe this is on me, but 30% into this book and I kind of hate all the characters and the premise. Nothing is really happening other than a bear keeps coming around and everyone is miserable.

A short and compelling story that is an interesting way to help you feel the emotions of grief, gratitude, grace, love and compassion all within a crazy story in which a bear plays a prominent role. When I finished this book initially I was disappointed. What the heck? That was my first thought, then as time went by I realized I was missing something. So I listened to a podcast with the Author Julia Phillips and her thought process and her reasoning impressed and impacted me. She gave me lots of information to think about, and I gave the story a second pass. Wow! Her writing is great and it is a fantastic way to SHOW us about all of these emotions in events that are very rare. I liked it a lot more. I would give this one a shot! 4 stars.

This was a really interesting story with the Bear being used as a metaphor. The characters weren't super developed, that would have helped some but I liked that there was a sense of hope for something better. Better development would have helped me connect with the story and root for hte main character, who wasn't likeable.

"𝘚𝘢𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘴, 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘥."

I picked up 𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗥 after my friend @jennydlovesthebooks raved about it and I'm so glad I did.

It's the story of two young adult sisters living on San Juan Island whose worlds revolve around taking care of their terminally ill mother. Their lives are small and repetitive, stuck in a rut they can't seem to escape... until a rare brown bear appears in the area. Younger sister Sam is terrified of it but Elena is enthralled, seeking it out and changing the course of their lives forever.

Julia Phillip seems to infuse elements of fables and fairy tales into the book, with hints of mysticism and strong ties to nature. There's a really strong sense of place and the audiobook narration brings the story to life beautifully. While the first half of the book is a slow burn, the second is propulsive, hurdling the reader toward a jaw dropping ending I won't soon forget.

Thanks to PRH Audio and Random House for the copies to review.

3.5 stars. I received Bear as an ARC through NetGalley and read it over a couple of months. Two sisters in their 20s living on an island with their dying mother discover a bear and a parable or fable of sorts begins. The relationship of the sisters and their mother is purposefully frustrating (hanging with Sam’s brain was a challenge) and the author expertly uses the atmosphere to enhance the story. Julia Phillips has a quiet style that approaches relationships and subject matter in a unique way. I loved Disappearing Earth which captured loneliness and isolation in a way that has stuck with me. While the pacing of Bear didn’t completely work for me (second half was much stronger) I look forward to reading more of her books in the future.

Thank you netgalley and Random House Hogarth Books for the advance copy of this.
I loved Disappearing Earth and was excited to read this next novel by Julia Phillips. The writing was great as I expected, and I did feel dropped onto San Juan Island. This book dug deep into how siblings can be so close but still have different memories of how things happened, or ideas about how things are going to unfold. Many reviewers said the ending shocked them, but to me it was not shocking. This story lies halfway between reality and fairy tale, but it calls to the fairy tales that didn't always have a happy ending, the Hans Christian Anderson type insteed of the Disney-fied version. I couldn't put this book down and I had a lot of empathy for both sisters, but especially Sam as the reader mostly gets the story from her perspective. I also had oldest sibling empathy for Elena. This is a book you should read if you like literature that isn't black and white and leaves you pondering what exactly the story was about after all.

Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse @hogarthbooks for this advance copy.
.
Isn’t this the most gorgeous, eye catching cover? Bear is a beautifully written story with a fairytale like quality about two sisters who feel stuck in their small island community while struggling to care for their ailing mother. And then a bear shows up at their house. I was interested in the story as the family dynamics of these two sisters were slowly revealed, but the point of the bear was not entirely clear to me, and much of the story focuses on it. It would be interesting to discuss this one with a book club to get different perspectives on the bear and what the author is trying to say, if anything. A unique and thought provoking family drama.

This could have easily bumped up to a 4-star read for me, but I had some issues with the way the characters were treated and developed. It's a great story about family and duty and sacrifice, loss and grieving. I liked the root of the characters - Elena is the older sister, the responsible one who does what's expected of her with little push back. Sam is the younger sister, immature and drifting through life, doing the bare minimum. They're both struggling with caring for their dying mother, but their struggles form what seems like an unbreakable bond. It's their story, their relationship, that I enjoyed most about this book. Enter the bear. It appears on the island one day and seems fixated with Elena, and she with the bear. Here's where I struggled. Both Sam and Elena's reactions to the bear bordered on ridiculous and out of character for both of them.

I was not surprised by the ending; based on the build up, it really was the only way it could end. But I was disappointed in it; it felt like an easy way out of so many loose ends.

I received an ARC of this book and was really looking forward to it based on the description. It’s written in a really interesting way where everything seems slow and almost mundane while at the same time, somehow, symbolic and fantastical. It was a bit of a slog for me, I’ve got to admit. Not enough to abandon it, but still. The characters felt very real, very much people and situations you know exist prolifically and heartbreakingly. But then there’s the bear. It’s an interesting yet odd one, and I’ll leave it at that.