167 pages
English language
Published Oct. 5, 2018
The delightful story of Nora who, after a succession of terrible boyfriends, finds a much happier relationship with a 500-pound American black bear. Bear meets girl. Nora has bad luck with men. When she meets an (actual) bear on a hike in the Los Angeles hills, he turns out to be the best romantic partner she's ever had! He's considerate, he's sweet, he takes care of her. But he's a bear, and winning over her friends and family is difficult. Not to mention he has to hibernate all winter. Can true love conquer all?
Nora had a string of bad boyfriends, until she meets Bear. Bear seems to meet all over her emotional needs, but has issues that are unique to him being a bear.
An interesting critique on relationships.
Arbitrary start date, but it took me about a month to read this, picking it up once a week for 10-15 minutes at a time.
I oscillated between trying to puzzle out the extended metaphor, and trying to read it as the straight comedy it’s written as. (That sentence sucks.) I hope you understand what I mean. The book really defies greater interpretation. It hits you over the head repeatedly with the “no, it’s really a literal bear we’re talking about here”. Which is too bad really, because while that’s a semi-amusing premise, it doesn’t go anywhere, there’s no sudden understanding that all bears are sentient and we’ve been treating them wrong for centuries or anything silly like that. No, it’s just a bear in a relationship with a girl who isn’t afraid to work at a completely morally reprehensible job.
So... ultimately, this kinda sucked. Cute tho.
