Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  Bear, Otter, and the Kid

SERIES:  Bear, Otter, and the Kid #1

AUTHOR:  TJ Klune

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  350 pages

BLURB:  

Three years ago, Bear McKenna’s mother took off for parts unknown with her new boyfriend, leaving Bear to raise his six-year-old brother Tyson, aka the Kid. Somehow they’ve muddled through, but since he’s totally devoted to the Kid, Bear isn’t actually doing much living—with a few exceptions, he’s retreated from the world, and he’s mostly okay with that. Until Otter comes home.

Otter is Bear’s best friend’s older brother, and as they’ve done for their whole lives, Bear and Otter crash and collide in ways neither expect. This time, though, there’s nowhere to run from the depth of emotion between them. Bear still believes his place is as the Kid’s guardian, but he can’t help thinking there could be something more for him in the world… something or someone.

REVIEW: 

When I was asked to review The Art of Breathing, the soon to be released third novel in TJ Klune’s Bear, Otter, and the Kid series, I didn’t even hesitate before I agreed.  Despite the fact that I had yet to read Who We Are, the second novel in this series, I absolutely loved the first book and was not going to let this chance slip thru my fingers.  But to do my reading, and review, of The Art of Breathing any justice, I quickly realized that I was going to have to go back and reread Bear, Otter, and the Kid as well as reading Who We Are.  Not a hardship, I assure you.  And since I was taking the time to read these books–and as we did not already have reviews for these books on the blog–I asked if I could write a set of reviews for the series.

Thus began what I have jokingly termed my Great Bear, Otter, and the Kid Adventure (or GBOATKA–because initialisms are cool, man).  Three weeks of reading (give or take a hockey break or two) all three books, getting to know three men, and falling love, heartbreak, and generally crying Wookie tears all over the place.  It was one hell of a long journey, but worth every moment, every tear, and every laugh.

GBOATKA Part One

Wherein Our Reviewer Losses Her Heart

In the beginning there was Bear.  And then there was Ty. And then there was Creed, Otter, and Anna.  In the beginning there was Bear and the Kid.  And so the story begins.

Hours away from turning 18, Derrick McKenna–Bear to all that love him (and some that don’t)–comes home to find that his mother has taken off to parts unknown with her boyfriend, most of

Bear’s savings, and any hope that Bear had of ever escaping Seafare and the responsibility of raising his little brother, Ty.  And no matter how hard he wishes it weren’t so–or how much he wants to do the same–he knows that he could never abandon Ty.  And so hours after turning 18, and days before graduating high school, Bear makes a promise to himself to do whatever he has to do to protect, raise, and love his little brother.  Including being strong-armed into accepting his friends help.

But no amount of promises or goodwill was going to protect Bear from Otter.  From what Otter makes Bear feel.  From what Bear does to Otter.  Because it might have been the alcohol that made him slip his guard, but it was Bear who kissed Otter.  It was Bear who pushed him away.  It was Bear who woke up alone to find that Otter had left him confused, angry, hung over, and so very alone.

And even three years later–three years of struggling and scraping and winning all those little hard-fought battles with life–Bear still misses Otter.  Almost as much as he wants to hate him.  But when Otter comes back, and Bear has nowhere left to run, is it even possible for the two to find a place on solid ground…or will the waves wash them completely out to sea?

Oh Christ on a cheesy cracker.  There is no way that this book should work.  It’s in first person, the timeline is an absolute mess, and Bear repeatedly breaks the fourth wall–to the extent that it might just be better to install a screen door and just leave the wall down in pieces at the reader’s feet.  And the angst…it is like the motherfucking angst mothership where all other little angsty books come to refuel and take little angsty naps.

In anyone else’s hands, this book would be an absolute and total mess.  And yet…

And yet I am so completely and absolutely in love with this book and these characters.

Ty–or the Kid–is just…oh my god he is just perfect.  He is a neurotic, funny, vegetarian mess.  I loved him so much.  And that is saying something, because I don’t like kids in real life–and only tolerate them in books.  And yes, Ty does not read like a normal nine year old. Mostly because he is not. He is crazy smart and has some highly questionable ideas about meat (yummy bacon is yummy, I don’t care what he says), but he is also a kid in every way that matters.  And it is this mix carefree kid and scared adult that is the Kid, that makes Ty such an interesting character.  Ty is not just some tagalong to the story’s MCs. He is as important to the story as Otter and Bear.  Partly because he is the lynchpin that the story hinges, but also because he forces the characters into action when they would much rather stand at status quo.

And Otter…be still my breaking heart.  I don’t like that he ran, but I understand it.  Like what else was he supposed to do?  Well, other than stay and make Bear talk that shit out.  But when he comes back, when he fights (“The fight for you was all I’ve ever known”) for Bear, even when it breaks him…then I can’t help but fall in love.  We see so much of Bear’s struggle in this book, but what Otter has to go through is just as rough.  He is putting his faith in the chance that Bear might love him back.  That Bear might fight for him back.  And for a minute there, for a moment, it must have seemed all so hopeless…yet, that fight is all he knows.  All he wants to know.  And he will hold on to Bear no matter how deep the water or how harsh the winds.  Just because Bear is Bear…and Otter can’t imagine living in a world where there is not Otter and Bear.

Not that that world is all flowers and skipping through fields…because Bear is Bear and where there is a Bear there is crippling self-doubt, major commitment issues, and an ingrained disbelief that there will ever be firm ground beneath him.  This book–for all that it hinges on Ty, and is grounded by Otter–it bleeds for Bear.  For 350 or so pages, we get to go along on Bears crazy, painful, and heartbreaking ride.  And it can make you want to shake him sometimes, because we can see how idiotic some of his decisions are.  We can see how they are going to break everyone around him.  We see how they are going to kill him.  And still I never wanted to leave him.  He has issues–oh so many issues–but there is just something about how he is written, how is story is written, that just makes you fall in love with this neurotic mess.

There is just something about him that makes all the little things (the doubt, the second guessing, the pain he causes Otter, Anna, Creed, and even the Kid) not as important as seeing Bear finally start to find himself.  It is not a full journey in this book, since this is only the beginning of their story together, but watching Bear struggle, and then pull himself together–if only for the moment–made me fall.  For Bear, because he is so broken.  For the Kid, because he is odd.  For Otter, because he is so determined.

So yeah, I fell.  And despite everything I can see them all as a family.  No matter what the world thinks.  No matter what their friends do.  No matter what Bear’s mother tries to do to rip them apart.

Because in the end there was Bear, Otter, and the Kid.  Just like there always would be.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

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