A heartwarming, poignant, and charming debut novel for fans of Nick Hornby and The Rosie Project, about a father and son overcoming their grief in surprisingly inventive ways.Danny’s life is falling apart. He’s become a single father to eleven-year-old Will—who hasn’t spoken since the death of his mother in a car crash a year earlier—and Danny has just been fired from his construction job. To … construction job. To make matters worse, he’s behind on the rent and his nasty landlord is threatening to break his legs if he doesn’t pay soon. Danny needs money, and fast.
After observing local street performers in a nearby park, Danny spends his last few dollars on a tattered panda costume, impulsively deciding to become a dancing bear. While performing one day, Danny spots his son in the park, and chases off the older boys who are taunting him. Will opens up for the first time since his mother’s death, unaware that the man in the panda costume is his father. Afraid of disclosing his true identity, Danny comforts his son. But will Danny lose Will’s trust once he reveals who he is? And will he be able to dance his way out of debt, or be beaten up before he has a chance?
Filled with a colorful cast of characters, Bear Necessity is a refreshingly unpretentious and ultimately uplifting story of a father and son reconnecting in the most unlikely of circumstances.
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Thoroughly enjoyed this unusual book about a grieving son and father.
Good story. Way way way too much foul language. Almost stopped reading it. I would not recommend to my friends.
This is wonderful story of a father and son trying to learn to live again when their wife/mother has died. Danny’s life is sucking big time. His wife died a year ago and since then his son Will hasn’t talked. Danny is behind on the rent and then to top it off he gets fired. Will and his best friend Mo are being tormented by bullies in school. Can Danny and Will reconnect and try and get their issues solved? This is a wonderful feel good book with amazing characters! I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.
“Who taught you how to dance like that?”
“A pole dancer called Krystal…” “…She taught me after I rescued her bathrobe that was stolen by a wizard who can set things on fire with his mind.”
Wow. Just wow. I laughed, I cried, I cringed and I just sat in amazement as everything unfolded in crazy outlandish wonder. Danny lost his wife to an auto accident. He cares for his son Will who hasn’t spoken a word since that fateful day that he survived and his mom did not.
Danny loses his job and is threatened with a claw hammer to his legs by his landlord if he doesn’t pay the two months of back rent plus interest in a month. Being turned down by every job he finds he decides to rtry his luck as a street performers. Problem is he has no talents besides bad dancing and all he can afford is a panda suit that doesn’t exactly look like a panda. What ensues is an outrageously weird but funny read traverses the pain of losing someone close to you and trying to cope with that loss and life change. It explores bullying and extreme hard times. It also looks at friendship in the oddest of circumstances and outlandish of characters. Ivan you will forever have my heart and Mr. Coleman deserves teacher of the year award.
I highly recommend this for more than just the laughs to anyone looking to branch into humorous domestic fiction. Thank you Scribner and James Gould-Bourn for the opportunity to review this novel for an unbiased opinion.
I started this book feeling like 3.5 stars but the more I got into the story the 4 stars started to appear, I had a hard time at the beginning of the story with all the chatting going in circles not getting anywhere but then as I understood where the story was heading, I felt like I was beginning to see the real true colors of Bear Necessity.
Bear Necessity, a story of a man trying to reconnect with his son and save his family, after a very bad hard tragedy in his past that put a very big reef between them now Danny is ready to recover the lost time and finally become a friend to his son.
Will doesn’t like to talk, he prefers to live in his mind, afraid of life and bullies he just wants to spend time with his best friend Mo and forget about the past and all the burdens he keeps living. he misses his mom so much, he misses his friend, someone to talk, someone to laugh and feel protected, it’s up to life and circumstances to finally bring Will and Danny together.
I laugh so much with many of the secondary characters and their shenanigans Katrina, Mo, Ivan all of them really brought so much to the story giving more depth to the main characters they really made me laugh so much.
What I like about the story was the Danny never gave up, that he kept working hard to give anything his son was missing, no matter if he had to work in a very weird job, his priority was to become friends and family all over again.
What I disliked was the constant bullying to the Main characters, it made me angry and sad at the same time, that most of the people surrounding Danny and Will were people with the need to out them down.
Bear Necessity is a story of friendship, love, empathy, and hope, a story of second chances.
Overall was a good story, a story that needs time to make you feel all the feels.