Bear Necessity
Bear Necessity by James Gould-Bourn follows Danny Malooley,
a 28-year-old single father. Will, his 11-year-old son, hasn’t spoken since the
car accident that took his mother, and Danny’s wife, last year. His angry Russian
boss just fired him from his construction job. Danny’s rent is months behind, and
his crazy landlord Reg is threatening to break his legs if he doesn’t get the money
by the end of 4-weeks. Danny’s life is falling apart, and he needs money, lots
of it, and fast.
During
a walk through the park Danny spots the street performers, but more importantly
the coins and bills flowing out their hats and music cases. Danny uses the last
of his money and buys a panda suit that looks more like a ferret than an actual
panda and becomes a street dancer. One day when Danny is performing he saves
his son Will from bullies and Will opens up, speaking for the first time since
the accident. Without revealing his identity, Danny listens as Will talks about
his mom, and learns more about his son than ever before. Danny finds a new
purpose to his life, and with the help of friends becomes the father, and
friend, he wasn’t before.
I
think this was the first adult novel I’ve read, and I enjoyed it a decent
amount. The first third of the book was really slow. There were also some
unrealistic aspects at the end of the book, but it didn’t bother me too much.
Overall, I think the good outweighed the bad. I originally picked up the book
because I thought the cover and title were cute, but I didn’t have high
expectations for the book itself. After I finished the novel I changed my mind.
I loved the characters, none of them had flat personalities and were likeable
and funny. I also appreciate how the author didn’t try and manipulate the
readers emotions like a lot of other “sob” stories do. The author wrote the
story in a way where optimism, and comedy can flow effortlessly into poignancy
and loss. Even though the novel focuses on some serious topics it doesn’t seem
like a heavy novel. I would recommend Bear Necessity to someone looking
for a chill, sweet, and heartwarming read. (3.75 stars/5) Thanks for reading!
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Bridget
This sounds like a good book. I think the plot of the book sounds really interesting, and it seems to have other nice aspects as well. I like that you said the characters are not flat. It always makes a book much more enjoyable when it has nice, well-rounded characters.
ReplyDeleteGood job on your post, I think the summary is very well-written and concise! My first thought when I saw this book was that I liked the cover. I agree with you, they say not to judge a book by its cover but I probably would've picked it up because of the title and cover drawing. This sounds like a really sweet story, with interesting and unique characters. I will definitely try reading this :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this is exactly my kind of book, but it sounds good. I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad think for a book to try to manipulate your feelings but it's definitely overused and It sounds better to just present information as it is most of the time.
ReplyDeleteWow this sounds like a very interesting book. I definitely did not expect the book to be as deep as it sounds from the title and cover. I love that even though it has a quirky and creative way for the father to connect with his son, it still sounds very grounded to reality in a way that it could plausibly happen in real life.
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