The Bear

Vaunted author Julia Phillips has written a depressing if well executed tale of two young adult sisters trapped in a deteriorating house on present day San Juan Island (off the coast of Washington) caring for a terminally ill mother while toiling away in mind numbing low wage service jobs. They share a dream of selling the house and property after they mother dies and making an escape. I read half the book plus the last 3 chapters and would summarize it thus. A grizzly bear swims to the island from the mainland and begins hanging around their house. Older sister Elena is enchanted and seeks to befriend the bear. Younger sister Sam is terrified of the beast and can't get anyone to take seriously the threat the bear represents. Mother dies. Bear eats Elena. Sam leaves home.  Apparently I was not in the right frame of mind for this book. 

Publishers Weekly calls the book "beautiful...haunting...brilliant." Booklist calls it a "brooding yet incisive tale." Library Journal offers this accurate summary: "....a strong, melancholy novel exploring the bonds and limitations of sisterhood. Sam and her older sister Elena have been caring for their mother, who is terminally ill, for years and are both trapped in minimum-wage jobs and drowning in debt. Bonded by the abuse, isolation, and pain they endured in childhood, the sisters feel that outsiders are not to be trusted and made plans years ago to leave their hometown behind once their mother died. Sam and Elena's plans are thrown into disarray, however, when a bear begins appearing near their home. Elena is entranced by what she believes is a gentle, maybe even magical creature, while Sam fears for her family's safety. As Elena grows closer to the bear, and Sam becomes increasingly wary of the animal, the sisters' bond is strained by their inability to understand one another as well as by past secrets coming to light. ... By focusing on the characters' relationships with one another, Phillips brings complicated, very human characters to life in a tale filled with sadness. Literary fiction readers looking for complicated family stories will be immersed in the novel's haunting tragedy."