The Bear

By Andrew Krivak

From National Book Award in Fiction finalist Andrew Krivak comes a gorgeous fable of Earth’s last two human inhabitants, and a girl’s journey home

In an Edenic future, 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.

A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature’s dominion.

Andrew Krivak is the author of two previous novels: The Signal Flame, a Chautauqua Prize finalist, and The Sojourn, a National Book Award finalist and winner of both the Chautauqua Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He lives with his wife and three children in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire, in the shadow of Mount Monadnock, which inspired much of the landscape in The Bear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
• Release date: Feb 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781942658719

Andrew Krivak

Andrew Krivák is the author of The Signal Flame and the National Book Award finalist, The Sojourn, which also won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Chautauqua Prize. He lives with his wife and three children in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Book preview

THE BEAR

THE LAST TWO WERE A GIRL AND HER FATHER who lived along the old eastern range on the side of a mountain they called the mountain that stands alone. The man had come there with a woman when they were young and built a house out of timber, stones pulled from the ground, and mortar they made with a mix of mud and sand. It was set halfway up the mountain’s slope and looked out onto a lake ringed with birch trees and blueberry bushes that ripened in summer with great bunches of fruit the girl and her father would pick as the two floated along the shore in a canoe. From a small window in front of the house—the glass a gift the woman’s parents had given to her after having received it themselves from the generation before, so precious a thing had it become as the skill for making it was lost and forgotten—the girl could see eagles catching fish in the shallows of an island that rose from the middle of the lake and hear the cries of loons in the morning while her breakfast cooked over a hearth fire.

IN WINTER THE SNOWS BEGAN NOT LONG AFTER the autumn equinox and still visited the mountain months after the spring. Storms lasted for days and weeks at a time, drifts climbing up against the house and burying paths as deep as some trees grew high. Often the man had to wade for firewood or trudge out to his toolshed at the edge of the forest with a rope tied around his waist.

But when the winds settled, the skies cleared, and the low sun shone again, the man would wrap the young girl warm and tight in a pack, walk out into the stillness of winter, and float on snowshoes made of ash limbs and rawhide down to the frozen lake, where the two would spend the day fishing for trout and perch through the ice.

Snow covered so much of the girl’s world from mountaintop to lake that for almost half the year all she could see when she looked out that window was a landscape at rest beneath a blanket of white.

AND YET NO MATTER HOW LONG WINTER LASTED, spring followed, its arrival soft and somehow surprising, like the notes of birdsong upon waking, or the tap of water slipping in a droplet from a branch to the ground. As the snow melted, black rocks, gray lichen, and brown leaf cover emerged from the once-uniform palette of the forest floor, and the thin silvery outlines of trees began to brighten with leaves of green against the groupings of hemlock and pine. Those were the days when the girl left the house in the morning with her father and studied a new world that pushed up from the dirt of the forest and emerged from the water at the edge of the lake, days in which she lay on the ground beneath a warm sun and wondered if world and time itself were like the hawk and eagle soaring above her in long arcs she knew were only part of their flight, for they must have begun and returned to someplace as of yet unseen by her, someplace as of yet unknown.

THERE WAS, THOUGH, ONE DAY AMONG ALL FOUR seasons of the year the girl loved best. The summer solstice. The longest day of the year. The day on which the man told her she had been born. And he made it a tradition to give his daughter a gift on the eve of the solstice. She didn’t remember receiving the earliest ones, but she cherished them just the same. A carved wooden bird so lifelike, it looked as though it could fly. A purse made of deer hide and sinew that was her mother’s and in which she kept colored stones found along the lake. A water cup shaped from a piece of solid oak and from which she drank. A painted turtle that walked slowly from the man’s hands as he unfolded them and which she kept for the summer as a pet, then released down by the lake in the autumn.

On the eve of the year the girl turned five, her father gave her a bowl of fresh strawberries after their supper and said, I have a special gift for you tonight.

He handed her a box made of birch skin, around which a long piece of dried grass was tied in a bow. She untied the bow and opened the box. Inside was a silver comb polished brightly and looking like nothing she had ever seen before.

She stared at the comb for a long time, until the man broke the silence.

This was your mother’s, he said. I have been waiting to give it to you. When I watched you fighting with your hair down on the lakeshore, I thought, This is the year.

She reached into the box, took out the comb, and held it as she would a thing delicate and to be revered.

I love it, she said quietly, closed her hand around the comb, then climbed into her father’s arms and hugged him.

THE GIRL HAD HEARD THE VOICE OF THE MAN IN her ear for as long as she could remember, so she never wondered if there was someone else who might have once spoken to her as well. But when she was old enough to walk beyond the house and into the woods or down to the lake, she began to notice something about the animals. There were two foxes darting in and out of the downed-log den with their skulk of pups. Two loons escorted the baby loon across the deep middle of the lake every summer. And when she saw does grazing in spring in a small meadow at the base of the mountain, there were the fawns right by their sides. So after the girl had practiced running the comb through her hair and the man tucked her into bed and kissed her good night, she looked up at him and asked, Why are you alone?

The man knelt down at her bedside.

I’m not alone, he said. I have you.

I know, said the girl. I mean where did my mother go? Everywhere around me there are things you tell me were once hers. But she’s not here.

She’s here, he said. In what we remember of her.

But I don’t remember her, she said. What happened to her?

The man bowed his head and lifted it again, and he told his daughter that when he and the woman buried their parents and came to the mountain and built their house, she was all the world he knew, and he believed for a time that the two of them would live alone in this world for the rest of their days. Until she discovered she was going to have a child.

Me, said the girl.

You, said the man. But when the time came, she had to struggle a great deal to bring you into the world. And after that struggle the only thing she could do was nurse you and rest. She was strong. Strong enough to live through the summer and into the fall to give you what milk and nourishment she had to give. But, in time, I knew she would leave us for that place where the struggle to bear a child had taken her, and neither you nor I could follow. And one evening before the hunter’s moon she went to sleep and didn’t wake.

The man turned away to look into the dark for a moment, then turned back to his daughter. She sat up and reached out from underneath the blanket and took his hand in hers.

It’s all right, she said. I understand.

He smiled and said, You’re a wise girl. But there’s still much you can’t understand. So much you shouldn’t have to. Not yet.

Like what? she asked.

Well, like how even after all these years, years in which I’ve had you to think about every minute of every day, I still think of her. I still miss her and wish she were here.

The girl lay back down on the pillow.

Will I miss you one day? she asked.

One day, the man said.

The girl was quiet then and the man thought she might have fallen asleep, but she asked again into the dark, Are you sad that you have me instead?

Oh no, not for a moment! the man answered in a voice too loud for the room, and held the girl’s hand tighter. Not for one moment. You see, you are the joy I have beyond any sadness or wish that remains for what once was. Without you …

His voice trailed off and he stared down at the floor, then back at his daughter.

Without you I’d be nothing but alone, he said.

And without you I’d be alone, said the girl.

A hint of moonlight had begun to creep with the summer dusk into the house through the window, and the man could see traces of the woman in the face of the girl.

I know what we’ll do, he said. Tomorrow we’ll climb to the top of the mountain where your mother is resting. She loved the mountain. She used to say the summit looked like a bear. I want you to see it, too. Would you like that?

Yes, said the girl.

Good, the man whispered, and kissed her on the forehead a second time and tucked her in tight. Then rest well. Tomorrow we have a big climb.

The girl rolled over and huddled beneath her blanket, and before the moonlight had left the window she was asleep.

SHE WOKE AT DAWN TO THE SONGS OF A GRAY catbird and walked into the kitchen, where her father was making a breakfast of dried apple slices and mint-leaf tea.

It’s a beautiful morning, he said to his daughter. Eat and we’ll go.

The girl rubbed her eyes and sat down at the table. She had awakened several times in the night and had not slept well. She had had a dream in which she was lost somewhere between the summit of the mountain that stands alone and home. But if she was uncertain about whether she could or even wanted to make the climb that morning, she kept these thoughts to herself. The man said her mother lay in the earth on the top of a mountain, and so she would try as hard as she could to get there for her as much as for him. She ate in silence, drank her tea, and filled a gourd with water. Then she put on her thick deerskin shoes for moving over rocks and said, I’m ready.

THERE WAS A PATH. NOT WORN BUT DISCERNIBLE. The first stretch of it was no more difficult than the walk to the house from the water’s edge. As they climbed, though, the terrain became rockier, the trail steeper. By the time the sun had risen and the eastern and western shores of the lake were in full light, they had climbed with hands and feet up boulder after boulder to the midway point. There they rested on an outcropping of stone.

The girl drank water and ate a handful of hickory nuts. Her forehead was sweating and her legs ached, but there was no turning back. From what she could see from where they sat resting, the climb to the top looked harder than what she had just done.

The man wondered what was in her thoughts, and said, Your mother and I used to climb up here together every summer, but we were already grown by then. Do you know what that means?

The girl looked from the top of the mountain back at her father, and said, That I’m stronger than you.

Yes, the man said, and laughed. And I have a feeling you always will be.

He stood and shifted the contents of the pack in which he carried the things he always took when he

Reviews for The Bear

[d-fbuser-236264613 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lyrical and detailed about survival skills. Not really a plot to go on but rather meandering through like a stream. I liked it but it was unsatisfying.

[Chris Henderson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Happy ending. Human kind died out and the animals were kind enough to turn out the lights.

[carriewuj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What I loved most about this story was its indeterminate time - there are clues - but it could either be very distant past or very distant future (or imminent future, even). The characters are unnamed - a girl and her father live in the shadow of a mountain where her mother is buried - and as the girl grows, the father teaches her the ways of the natural world, as it is all they have for survival. When they need to make a trek to the ocean for necessary salt, the man needs to ensure that she can continue without him. While this seems impossible to the girl, she is befriended by a bear - almost a touch of magic in what is otherwise a very real and dire situation. This is a beautiful fable of survival and trust, respect, and co-dependence with the nature.

[streamsong_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A girl and her father live in an idyllic setting in the mountains, at the edge of a lake. They appear to be the last two humans on earth after some sort of apocalypse, although we are never told what happened or when.
Whatever it was, this beautiful place they live shows no effects; only the people are gone with nature and animals seemingly intact.

The father and his daughter, live a spare but secure life, with the father teaching the girl the survival skills she will need. When she is approximately eleven, they journey to the ocean to get salt and the girl finds herself unexpectedly alone. She determines to return to her mountain home, when she is approached by a great bear who helps her accomplish her journey.

Beautifully descriptive and with a spiritual element as, in a ruined world, nature and the bear enable the girl to draw in what she needs. I found this haunting, but also a bit puzzling. Could one live in an absolutely beautiful place without another human around? Is she truly the last human on earth? Would one go in search to try and find another or stay in a place of beauty where physical needs are met?

[Ana-Maria · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a delicate story, what a gifter writer! I read this story like a poem: one about love, about memory, about acceptance of life and death, about the importance of stories.

There are only two humans left in the entire world, a father and his daughter. They live in the wilderness of woods and mountains, and the father, while inconsolable after losing his beloved wife, does his best to enable his daughter to live alone in the world, after his death.

I saw the pair bear- puma as symbols of her mother and father, helping her through the tough winter. They watch from above, as the bear helps the girl find a way of communicating with her ancestors, just like he does when looking at the Great Ursa in the sky.

The memories of life are kept by trees and the other animals in the woods, and they will engrave into their collective mind the existence of the last humans, just as they are doing for all other beings around.

There is a sense of peace and acceptance coming from this book, a sense of deep connection with nature.

[berthirsch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

February 4, 2025
A sweet father-daughter post apocalyptic tale of survival. A loving father teaches his only daughter how to survive, even thrive, in the wilderness. Living in an arboreal forest setting they not only survive but learn to live in mutual cooperation with the other living creatures and plant life. The mother died when the girl was an infant.

This is a loving tale which could be viewed as a flip side story to the bleaker one told by Cormac McCarthy in The Road. While the nature of the apocalypse is never mentioned it appears as if the father- daughter are last survivors.

The book was recommended to me by my son who eventually intends to read this book with his toddler daughter in a few years time. A hopeful life affirming natural environment story.

[anaraguard · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In a near future time, a father and his daughter manage to live in the woods, somewhere in what was once Maine. They may be the last two humans on earth, certainly there are no others within the distance that they can walk, even over many days. He teaches her what she needs to know to survive, but when she finds herself suddenly alone, it is the company of a bear who helps her to return home. A beautifully told, sad tale that still manages to be uplifting. If we are to ruin ourselves, to bring about our own demise, at least in this vision, the land itself recovers, along with many of its furred, feathered, and finned inhabitants.

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

From the beginning, Andrew Krivak's The Bear held my attention. The story drew me in. I wanted to know what was happening. The details, though, pushed me away. They did push me away, but without making me want to abandon the story. So my solution was to skim past description, even though much of it was clear and even lush, and to skip on to follow the action. So I read to find who the characters were and what they were up to, skipping back now and again for context. This gave me a very satisfactory read of what became an enjoyable book about the last two humans in the world, and about a bear.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Bear by Andrew Krivak is a beautifully written fable about the last humans on Earth. A father and daughter who live close to the land and to nature. When the girl is eleven, they travel to the ocean to gather salt. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes, leaving only one human to travel on. It is here that the tale swings into fantasy as a bear now arrives and is willing to keep the last human safe and accompany them home.

This unusual tale, set far in the future is a story of survival as the last human must survive a long winter alone in the wilderness. The bear guides them to a cave but he must hibernate and so the human must cope on their own. In many ways this tale resembles the legends of indigenous people as it closely interacts with nature and animals and has the feel of a story that has been handed down through the generations. We never learn the names of the characters, where they are located or even how they came to be the last humans. Instead this is a simple tale of survival and the processing of grief accompanied by lush descriptions of nature.

While I loved this book, I can see that it would not appeal to all as it is emotionally moving but melancholy. I found I became wrapped up in the deceptive yet simple story, and very invested in the character so I wanted to find out how it was going to play out. The Bear is a dystopian folktale that I won’t soon forget.

[sunyidean · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful, surreal, post-apocalyptic fairytale. Came recommended to me by Jeff Vandermeer via Facebook and although I was a little doubtful at the start, it rapidly grew on me.

Note that this is very short, perhaps novelette length or short novella.

[evano_21 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful fable of a future where it's a pair of humans in a veritable Garden of Eden. Only, this is a father and a daughter and they are the last people, not the first. Beautiful, enigmatic, elegiac, filled with solitude more than loneliness and the understanding that someday, one of us may be the last.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This reminded me so much of The Snow Child. It feels like a prequel to that book. A young girl lives in the woods with her father. The descriptions of the wilderness around them pulls you in though it didn’t have the same impact on me as Snow Child.

[amanda4242_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first time I've ever applied the word beautiful to a book about the extinction of the human race. There's no oppressive dystopian government or apocalyptic event; it's just the natural end of a species and the world continuing on in its absence. Highly recommended.

[seeword · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Before I started reading this I was sure that I would read a few pages and set it aside. It didn't seem like reading about the last two people on earth was a good idea for a pandemic read. But, oddly, I found it comforting and I read it in pretty much one seating. The writing is mythic and it took me out of my isolated state for a few hours. These days any book that I can stay with for more than a few minutes is a winner.

[currerbell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Novella, not novel, and it might have been a bit trite if it weren't for the fact that we are never told the names of the father and his daughter, which gives the entire tale a mythic quality.

[mnpose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the NEA Big Read book for 2022 with the White Bear Center of the Arts. While the book describes a post apocalyptic time I found it a gentle and hopeful read. It is a story of a strong and capable young girl.
I found myself reading the last 40 pages very slowly as I wanted to take in and remember every detail.

[veronica.sparrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a beautiful fable! A young girl and her father are the last of the human race in the far future. The girl's father teaches her everything he knows about survival in anticipation of the day when she is alone. After her father passes while on a journey, it is up to the girl to find her way back home again. She is accompanied by a bear who helps her find her way through the wilderness.
There is so much depth to this equisite novel. There is the basic story but underlying it are layers of mystical folklore.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A young girl and her father are the only two surviving humans. They live on the edge of a lake at the foot of a mountain, foraging, hunting and fishing for food, the father always teaching the young girl skills she will need to survive after he is gone. Each year in the summer solstice, they climb the mountain to visit the grave of the girl's mother. When the girl is about 11, her father tells her they must travel to the sea many miles away to replenish their store of salt.

This was a beautiful and moving fable, a story about our place in nature. Although it is about the last two humans and how they survive, I don't think it really fits into the post-apocalyptic/dystopian genre. Rather, it is a lyrical meditation on how we are all interconnected with all other forms of life on Earth.

Recommended. 3 1/2 stars

[shellys_70 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's been a long time since I read a book like this. Relatively short, compelling though not a traditional pageturner, sparse and lyrical, with the simplest of plotlines. A girl and her father, living in a cabin by a lake, surrounded by mountains, perhaps the only two humans left on Earth, the father determined to teach his daughter all she needs to know to survive. And those skills are tested when she's left alone in an unfamiliar place, with only a bear to guide her home. Krivak is a skilled narrator and the book feels as if he's telling a story while seated at a campfire. I happily admit he had me teary-eyed by the end.

Reading this while the COVID-19 pandemic is raging might not have been the best choice, but it's a beautiful book about one girl learning to live in nature, where she'll have to do for herself everything needed to survive, and that's something that resonates at a time when we're all facing an uncertain future. The girl has to learn to listen to the natural world, to the animals and the trees and every living thing between them, something we all should probably learn to do, too.

[mysterymax_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I read it in one sitting, and all the raves about the beauty and sparseness of Krivak's prose is well deserved. However, the sparseness was a point against the book as well. Too little was said for me. Once the girl had returned home and buried her father's ashes the book sort of died. No words were given to describe her feelings of being alone for the rest of her life. Oneness with nature is all well and good, but I believe both people and animals have a need to be with another of their species. Here was a strong-willed girl. She made it back from the ocean. And then she calmly accepts a life of just existing from day to day? It didn't feel right to me.

All that said, it is a book that begs to be reread, to see if there is more to understand.

Bellevue Literary Press included a second book in my package, "A Wilder Time: Notes from a geologist at the edge of the Greenland Ice" by William E. Glassley, which I really enjoyed. It's an impressive press if these two books are any example.

[spongebobfishpants_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I must admit that I did not have high hopes for this book when it arrived, modern fables often failing to invoke the beauty of the setting in their prose style. I was delighted to discover this was not the case with The Bear. Kravik's prose is simple but evocative, reminding me of Steinbeck in his ability to pull you in and allow you to see and feel the world of the protagonist, a skill that many other writers, even good ones, too often lack. Although many reviewers focus on the dystopian aspect of the story, mistaking it for a less violence based end-of-the-world science fiction novel, The Bear is a classic Bildungsroman, a coming of age story. What makes this fable stand out is it's ability to conform to the depth of the reader; Compelling enough to be enjoyed as a simple but beautifully written story but surprisingly deep in it's greater meaning should the reader choose to pursue it.

[pinkpurlandprose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Many thanks to NetGalley, Bellevue Literary Press, and Andrew Krivak for an ARC in exchange for an honest review of The Bear. My thoughts and opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advance copy.

A simple yet stunning story that fills you with wonder. No wonder Andrew Krivak won the National Book Award for Fiction. His prose evokes every sound in nature so you feel the wind on your face, the crunch of the leaves, the smell of the grass. A father and his daughter in an Eden-like world, long after man has disappeared from the earth. The father teaches the daughter the ways of the land and reminds us of a time when respect for those who we share the earth with was vital. But nature can be cruel and as they travel days to retrieve much needed salt from the ocean, the father dies. A bear who has been passed down the knowledge of human language, accompanies the girl on her travels back home.

This move at a serene pace, with a gentle push forward as the trials and tribulations that living off the land can bring. The relationship between the father and daughter is loving, tender, and so supportive. He is raising a strong independent girl that will know how to survive once he no longer is around. He tells her stories of her mother and the animals with awe and respect. He teaches her well because when the bear observes her, he does so also with respect. He sees the way she kills an animal, thanks the animal spirits, gives back to the land and uses all parts of the animal so nothing goes to waste. The bear helps her survive the trek back to her home. Their relationship is also beautiful and magical. But there is a third character, the land. She can be kind or cruel, is always magnificent.

This is one of those special books that you can read over and over again. Each time you revisit the story, you will find something else to marvel about. I was entranced the whole time I was reading it. It really did transport me to a new world, I was sad to leave the characters and loved the prose. One of my favourite reads in a while.

[gennac-606910 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"A quarter moon had long set in the west and to the north shone lights of green and yellow and red that shimmered and waved like water across the upper air of the horizon. She gazed in wonder at the lights, at what could be alive there that high in the sky, and she felt a strength of will in her."

Hauntingly sparse and profoundly affecting. Post-apocalyptic in nature, but our context is sparing, allowing the words and the story to be the compass, with not even character names to distract from the heart of the tale. The Bear is about loss, the harsh poetry of the natural world, and the insurmountable journeys we all must take at one time or another. This story will probably not speak to you if you don’t feel a certain affinity to nature and its excruciating apathy, but for those with whom The Bear resonates, it will read like a masterful fable, dense with the lessons of the wild.

[beecharmer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this charming book. It is the story of the last two people on earth. A father and his daughter. When an accident happens the girl has to make it on her own, but she finds help in the animals around her. I loved her will to survive and determination to return her father's remains to the mountain to lie beside her mother.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A short, beautiful little novel about a girl and her father, the last two people on Earth, who live halfway up an isolated mountain.

The writing in this really is just lovely. Not fancy, not clever in a show-offy sort of way, but clean and elegant and perfect.

The story itself surprised me a little. Partway through, it becomes partially a survival story, which I expected, and partly an odd sort of fable, in which various animals begin to talk to the girl and help her to survive. That took me aback a bit at first, and I found myself thinking that I preferred the earlier, more realistic parts of the story. But the writing continued to be lovely, and in the end, it all worked for me, very well. Indeed, I wasn't at all prepared for just how much the ending affected me, emotionally.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A pitch-perfect little gem.

A father and his young daughter are the last two humans. They know little of the society that is no more, and they have no need to know what disaster ended it. The two have a small cabin on a mountain and live a hunter-gatherer life, the father teaching the girl all he knows as soon as she is old enough to take it in. The mother is buried on top of the mountain, and each year on the girl's birthday they travel to it to honor and remember her. It's a simple life that suits the two. When the girl is a young teenager she is forced by circumstances to find her way home alone from a long journey. How she manages this entails a bit of magical realism that fits right in to this haunting story.

Highly, highly recommended.

[katybee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This quiet story is written as a fable about the last two people left in the world, living in communion with nature. In lovely, descriptive language, it visits the life of a father raising his young daughter. The girl's mother passed away when she was a baby and the father relays his memories and also teaches the girl to hunt, forage, make bows and arrows, and tan skins to make clothing. When an accident happens, the girl must depend on a somewhat mythic bear to help her survive. This short novel is completely set in the natural world of forests, rivers, passing seasons, and wildlife. No explanation is given of the demise of other humans, and the settings seem almost like a dream compared to our current industrial world. I found it very moving in its own peaceful way, especially the way the father passed on survival wisdom and respect for other living things to his young offspring.

[christiana5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! This short novel drew me in from the start and I read it in a few hours. It’s the story of the last two humans on earth, a father and daughter, in a distant future that resonates of early humanity. The prose is lyrical, and even though the characters have no names, the story packs an emotional punch, providing a both sad and hopeful vision for humanity’s future/end. Highly recommended.

I received this, along with another of the author’s books, from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review. This is my second such book from this publisher, Bellevue Literary Press, and I’m incredibly impressed by their books, the speed at which they arrive for review, and their generosity in including a second book as well.

[basilsbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was an all around perfect book for those wanting to step back into the feelings you had when growing up listening to a story and being completely taken away by it.
The book begs to be read silently and when reading it will feel like whispers and wind. I received this ARC and while I thought I would love it I didn't realize how it would touch me and make me take a look into our world. I have always been at home listening to nature or lying in a field of hay but this book makes you want to find home in earth and breathe slowly and take time. I never expected the book to make me cry and it really did, in the best ways. I highly recommend to those of us that fall into that category of "How beautiful the world will be when earth is left to her own devices and can claim it again". The book leaves you feeling a bit hollow and empty with sadness and recognition on the fragility of humans. I found it a great comfort, this book.

[ireneattolia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this was just lovely