Oh this was great. Yes, there is a giant bear. Half the rest of the cast is stranger than the bear. It's a wild story that would probably do okay on its own.

But the story is entirely eclipsed by the narration. Everything is told from the point of view of Rachel, a woman of color, an orphaned refugee. This point of view is very different from the standard. Her goal is not to uncover the plot. Her goal is not to solve the challenge ahead. She is so different from what I am used to from other fiction, and yet she is more human for it. So many unexpected decisions that I would probably make the same way. (If I ever faced the same, rather unlikely, circumstances.)

Oh and the writing. A lot of the book is about people saying different things than they think and yet understanding each other on some level. This is what is going on in real life all the time! And I see it so rarely in books. I think it is because it is super hard to pull off. It is a total success here though. Maybe because you get to know Rachel so well through the narration that reveals much of her thoughts.

All this is presented in fantastic prose. It is not just cleverly written to make for more interesting reading. Just look at these sentences and you will see how the elaborate phrasing packs on some extra layers of expression:

That was the moment I knew I’d decided to trade my safety for something else. That was the moment. And no matter what happened next, I had crossed over into another place, and the question wasn’t who I should trust but who should trust me.

Wick kept too many secrets. It was getting too difficult—occupying the same space but traveling through separate universes of need, of want.

The worst thing was that I could not escape any of the passing seconds. Every moment came to me clear and distinct, and no one moment stood for anything but itself.