While camping with her family on a remote island, five-year-old Anna awakes in the night to the sound of her mother screaming. A rogue black bear, 300 pounds of fury, is attacking the family's campsite, pouncing on her parents as prey.
At her dying mother's faint urging, Anna manages to get her brother into the family's canoe and paddle away. But when the canoe dumps the two children on the edge of the woods, and the sister and brother must battle hunger, the elements, and a dangerous wilderness, we see Anna's heartbreaking love for her family--and her struggle to be brave when nothing in her world seems safe anymore.
Claire’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Globe & Mail, The Millions, Los Angeles Review of Books and The Rumpus. See the other writing section of this website for more. Her first novel, The Line Painter, was published in 2007 by HarperCollins Canada. It won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service and was nominated for an Arthur Ellis Crime Writing Award for best first novel. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.
I spotted this book months ago in an upcoming releases Tumblr post by Little Brown and Company. The cover caught my attention with the little girl holding on to her brothers hand and running combined with a title The Bear. After reading the synopsis I was very curious if Anna would manage to get away and help her brother.
The first fifty pages I had a hard time getting used to Anna. There are so many things happening with the bear attacking the campsite but her thoughts are going everywhere. I must admit I got annoyed with it. I wanted to know so badly what she was able to see or spot and honestly did not really care if Alex was always stealing cookies and attention. There was so much tension and excitement with the bear attack that I got a bit scared too.
The rest of the story Anna keeps doing the same. While she is doing one thing she looses track of her own thoughts and wanders of to other days. Though it does give a clear view on her life and how things are with Alex and their parents I felt I missed some of the excitement now. I would not have minded a second narrator telling the story from a different point of view maybe an adult or even Alex. Still I could not stop reading. I simply had to know if they would survive.
The Bear
Author: Claire Cameron
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 208
Format: eGalley
ISBN-10: 031623012X
ISBN-13: 9780316230124
Little, Brown and Company: eBook | Hardcover
1 reacties:
Write reactiesThis entire premise sounds horrifying to me! (I have issues haha)
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