by Carrie Anne Noble
publisher’s synopsis
Sixteen-year-old Gretchen has been waiting forever to trade life on a dreary orbiting station for life on gloriously regenerated Earth. Still, visiting faerie-infested Britannia is not on her agenda—especially since no human who’s ventured there has ever returned. But when her stepsister sneaks off to the island to meet a faerie boyfriend, Gretchen’s stepmother forces her to choose: risk death to rescue the runaway, or forfeit her father’s life.
Lost in the faeries’ forest, Gretchen meets a family of Bearfolk—fae who can shift between human and bear forms. Kindhearted seventeen-year-old Arthur volunteers to help, while his mother, who believes Gretchen is the heroic Silverhair of faerie legend, schemes to use the girl for darker purposes.
When the quest to save the runaway proves costly, will Gretchen and Arthur find the courage to sacrifice what they hold dearest to save the ones they love most?
What I Liked:
-Noble has clearly developed a rich and layered faerie world for Britannia. I wish that more of Brittania and the types of faeries had been featured in the novel.
-The blending of all the different fairy tales. Noble’s other two novels have had a fairy-tale-like feeling to them, so it makes sense for her to have written a reimagining. Her writing style just has a cozy feeling to it.
What I Struggled With:
-It felt like there was a little bit of a disconnect between the first and second halves of the book. The first half was about Gretchen’s adventures in Brittania and trying to find Ruby, while the second half was about her and Arthur’s love story despite being apart. The two fit together in the end, but the change threw me off a little.
-While the sci-fi feeling elements themselves didn’t throw me off, I was confused about where Gretchen lived. The station and colony are referred to, which made me think that she lived in space for a good chunk of the novel. However, near the end, it’s clear that she lives in North America on earth. Maybe I just missed the information about where Gretchen lived, but it did confuse me.
-Toby. After his change of heart, the guy was a fun character. But the character switch and how easily Gretchen trusted and liked him seemed a little unrealistic.
Overall:
Gretchen and the Bear is a blending of fairy tales, and it works best if you read it as a fairy tale. That means overlooking the insta-love and things that wouldn’t make total sense in reality. If you can do that, you’ll find a unique story.
Cautions: moderate romance; three kisses; ten instances of coarser language; brief, non-detailed nudity related to shapeshifting
Hailey Huntington 
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