
Bear
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Sophie Amoss
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By:
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Julia Phillips
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the celebrated author of Disappearing Earth comes a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods—“a mesmerizing story about hope, sisterhood, and survival with a truly shocking twist at the end” (People, Book of the Week).
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK!
FINALIST FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Vulture, Chicago Public Library
“Thrilling and propulsive, glorious and terrifying. Julia Phillips is a brilliant writer.”—Ann Patchett
“Beautiful and haunting . . . this is brilliant.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
They were sisters and they would last past the end of time.
Sam and 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. Sam works on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits that shape their existence.
Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the 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. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the desire to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger.
A story about the bonds of sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among us—and within us—Bear is a propulsive, mythical, richly imagined novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers in America.
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Critic reviews
“Phillips smartly keeps us guessing whether the fantastical creature ultimately sees Elena as friend or feast…Bear ends with a bang, and with the intriguing notion that sisterhood (or sisters?) may be as unknowable and unpredictable as anything else in nature.”—New York Times Book Review
“Bear may remind readers of Alice Hoffman’s fantasy-flecked novels, and Phillips sprinkles around the fairy dust liberally in some sections. But she’s actually working closer to the realm of Henry James’s ‘Turn of the Screw,’ in which the central character blankets the story with her distorting anxieties.”—The Washington Post
“This mythical novel of obsession, moral reckoning, and aspiration glows with fairy tale magic.”—The Boston Globe
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That’s what the tour guide promises Dr. Linda Farmer and her family when they move to Plymouth Valley. Sure, the locals are privileged hot house flowers who observe a weird religion Hollow, but the schools are blue ribbon, the air’s clean, the food’s fantastic, and Linda’s out of options. With the outside world in shambles, this move is her family’s last chance.
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A (pre?) Apocalypse Capitalist Hellscape
- By Geoffrey Doyle on 11-03-24
By: Sarah Langan
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The Axeman's Carnival
- By: Catherine Chidgey
- Narrated by: Nic Sampson
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, and this is where his story might have ended. “If it keeps me awake,” says Marnie's husband Rob, a farmer, “I'll have to wring its neck.” But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple's future. Tama can speak, and his fame is growing. Outside, in the pines, his father warns him of the wickedness wrought by humans. Indoors, Marnie confides in him about her violent marriage. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds—and all the precarity, darkness and hope within them—bleed into one another.
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Something delightfully different
- By cvchaney on 12-21-24
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Fire Exit
- By: Morgan Talty
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.
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Wonderful story about love, family , truth and deception and identity
- By ReallyNelie on 06-23-24
By: Morgan Talty
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Catalina
- A Novel
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfillment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her own complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world that has no place for the undocumented; her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties and secret societies.
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Monotone delivery
- By Patricia M Hart on 11-01-24
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The Winner
- A Novel
- By: Teddy Wayne
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Conor O’Toole has never been anywhere like Cutters Neck, a gated community near Cape Cod. It’s a sweet deal for the summer: in exchange for tennis lessons, he receives free lodging in a luxurious guest cottage, far from the cramped Yonkers apartment he shares with his diabetic mother.
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Pretty Good
- By Suzanna on 06-04-24
By: Teddy Wayne
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Cascadia
- By: Julia Phillips
- Narrated by: Pegah Ferydoni
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Auf einer Insel im Nordwesten der USA lebt Sam mit ihrer Schwester Elena und der schwerkranken Mutter in ärmlichen Verhältnissen. Sam arbeitet auf der Fähre, die die wohlhabenden Urlauberinnen und Urlauber zu ihren Feriendomizilen bringt, während Elena im Golfclub kellnert. Sie beide träumen von einem besseren Leben, davon, woanders neu anzufangen. Dann, eines Nachts, erblickt Sam einen Bären, der durch die dunklen Gewässer vor der Küste schwimmt. Noch kann sie nicht ahnen, dass das wilde Tier die Welt der beiden Schwestern völlig aus den Angeln heben und ihren lang gehegten Traum in Gefahr bringen wird.
By: Julia Phillips
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Women and Children First
- A Novel
- By: Alina Grabowski
- Narrated by: Abigail Reno, EJ Lavery, Maria McCann, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Nashquitten, MA, is a decaying coastal enclave that not even tourist season can revive, full of locals who have run the town’s industries for generations. When a young woman dies at a house party, the circumstances around her death suspiciously unclear, the tight-knit community is shaken. As a mother grieves her daughter, a teacher her student, a best friend her confidante, the events around the tragedy become a lightning rod: blame is cast, secrets are buried deeper.
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The Relationships of Mother’s & Daughters!
- By Amazon Customer on 06-30-24
By: Alina Grabowski
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Smoke Kings
- A Novel
- By: Jahmal Mayfield
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Smoke Kings is a powerful and propulsive novel with a diverse and unforgettable cast of characters. Like Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay it explores decades of racial tensions through a fictional landscape where the line between justice and revenge is blurred.
By: Jahmal Mayfield
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The Bear
- By: Andrew Krivak
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
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A girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.
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Interconnectedness of all life
- By Sherrie Brownell on 07-18-20
By: Andrew Krivak
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Hard by a Great Forest
- A Novel
- By: Leo Vardiashvili
- Narrated by: Luke Thompson
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Saba is just a child when he flees the fighting in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with his older brother, Sandro, and father, Irakli, for asylum in England. Two decades later, all three men are struggling to make peace with the past, haunted by the places and people they left behind.
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Evocative and deeply moving
- By 2Rivers on 04-11-24
By: Leo Vardiashvili
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Swift River
- By: Essie Chambers
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Janina Edwards, Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: she’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on.
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Such promise!
- By Cate on 01-23-25
By: Essie Chambers
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Parade
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Cusk
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Midway through his life, the artist G begins to paint upside down. Eventually, he paints his wife upside down. He also makes her ugly. The paintings are a great success. In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. Her attacker flees, but not before turning around to contemplate her victim, like an artist stepping back from a canvas. At the age of twenty-two, the painter G leaves home for a new life in another country, far from the disapproval of her parents. Her paintings attract the disapproval of the man she later marries.
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Incomprehensible biologically-essentialist nonsense
- By Lu Clark on 03-15-25
By: Rachel Cusk
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Sandwich
- A Novel
- By: Catherine Newman
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds. This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.
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Stoppppppp Already!
- By Tara L. Darbyshire on 06-22-24
By: Catherine Newman
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Entitlement
- A Novel
- By: Rumaan Alam
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?
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so disappointing
- By K. Wagner on 09-22-24
By: Rumaan Alam
What listeners say about Bear
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jerseygirl
- 08-17-24
Keep looking for another book
Loved this author’s first book. Ignored the critical reviews on this site but they were right. I stuck it out til the end but it just got worse. Over all, kind of a mess.
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- april
- 08-30-24
Lovely writing. Dreadful Sam.
Phillips creates a character, Sam, and then deconstructs her. The metaphoric bear is jealousy, envy, fear of loss and ultimately a real bear, not anthropomorphic. The book is almost too sorrowful to recommend. Phillips’ books incooorate the natural world as a principal.
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- Jo
- 07-10-24
Long Trot Down a Single Path
The twist at the end was a nice unexpected turn after chapters and chapters of predictability.
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1 person found this helpful
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- SD KT
- 07-15-24
Engaging story of sisters
Enjoyable read about 2 sisters that feel bonded,but also one also finds an indescribable bond with a wandering bear. Quite a story and well read for audible experience.
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- Teresa Bogart
- 08-20-24
Story of survival
Loved that it took place in the San Jauns and on the ferry system where I grew up.
Has a lot of sadness and longing. And escape at the end.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-08-24
A bit far fetched and happily ever after ending felt discordant.
Like descriptions of place. Story and during felt discordant. Icky -not sure why this fell down flat for me but it did
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- ascot
- 07-28-24
Narration Didn’t Work For Me
As gorgeous as the story is, the uber emotive narration competes with, and even mocks the writing at times.
Many, if not most, listeners seem to enjoy this style . I don’t.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mona L. Maxwell
- 09-23-24
The Bear
I thought the book was slow and overall boring. I did not care for it.
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- Kristin Podgorski
- 11-30-24
Not A Fairy Tale
the main character is static. her outlook on everyone and everything is bitter throughout the novel. and she remains unlikeabl e until the end. her relationship with her sister is revealed to be one that lacks true intimacy as her sister reveals secrets abd resentments. the bear is not a symbol, but an animal unto which fantasies are projected; the " frame" of the Snow White and Rose Red fairy tale asks more if the story than the sad drudgery of the sister's lives mixed in with a little psychological projection. the writing is clear and a bit lyrical at times but us not rich in imagery, metaphor , or reflection until the last few pages. I understand that these kinds of lives exist, and as a teacher. I would have been empathic to these characters had they been real people; however. I did not feel that I learned or grew or felt transported by this novel at any level. the fairytale conceit could have been made powerful by more magical realism. description of the natural world on San Juan Island. and by more I teresting and reflective characters.
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- shawneen field
- 07-22-24
Meh.
I didn’t trust or like the main character, and the storyline was pretty weak. Everything seemed overly dramatic without there being any real drama.
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1 person found this helpful