Rainbear!!!!!!!!!

by Never Angeline Nørth

Rainbear!!!!!!!!! is the story of a woman who lives in a coffee shop where she makes a job out of loving people while inventing worlds in her dreams. The coffee shop is staffed by a barista-cum-border-guard who people show up to stab every week. Later, the narrative channels 18th century Jewish folktales as she is told a bedtime story about two queer lovers, who are themselves then told a dreamlike, quasi-erotic tale of a pagan prophet without a home. In this way, narratives eat each other and turn inside out as stories are found within stories and new adventures are told by unexpected rainbow bears that are also mountains and pages of journals are found papered inside the nests of vomitbirds.

100 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

About the author

Never Angeline Nørth is a mixed-media, cross-genre author and artist living in Olympia, WA. She formerly wrote books under the names Moss Angel and Sara June Woods.

Reviews

[I. Merey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The RAINBEAR!!!!!!!!! alphabet

A for aaA; B for beautiful; C for curious; D for divine; E for energetic; F for fearless; G for gggentle; H for horny; I for introspective; J for jizzy; K for klever; L for luminating; M for mystique; N for North; O for open-ended; P for playful and pretty; Q for queers; R for restless; S for sad; T for true; U for universe; V for vers; W for wonder; X for the unknown; Y for YES, and Z for zenith.

I'm not going to pretend I got all of this, but I did love it. North is playing and seems also deathly serious, and she invites us to play and be deathly serious too, if we want to. Some parts challenged me and my patience; that's cool. The middle part had one of the sweetest soliloquies from one partner to another that really got me right in the gut. RAINBEAR!!!!!!!!! understands the divine mystery shimmering over everyday life and that the child we were never leaves us--so it is important to remember and honor all parts of us. The people we were and the ones that we will be.

Oh and I loved the cover. Made with oil pastel, (aka crayons for adults). I loved the gentle mess of it and the delicate lines interwoven... Will definitely check out North's other work (like SEA WITCH).

[amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love this a lot

[Kelsey Gant · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was SO fun to read

[callista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything I could have ever wanted and MORE!!! The last part (MALXUS) was a bit hard for me to get through but I forgive it haha. Funny Strange Horny Beautiful. "We are born and we die and in the time in between we must find a way to help others live in a way that is beautiful and as free from pain as possible with the ideal that we too might be able to live in a way that is beautiful and as free from pain as possible" (32).

[mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is all the softest of dreams . . . this is all out there ⋆.𐙚 ̊

[Harper K · Rating 5 out of 5]

love love love yes yes yes yes thank you

[Jesse Larkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started and finished on Monday March 20th 2023
A coffee shop worker dreams of a better life. She is someone who opens themselves up to the world for love and is met with the spectrum of human capability. From bigotry and rejection to unconditional love
We enter a dream and awake in another and continue to fall deeper into stories and dreams within dreams
This book exists in the minds eye
In the memory houses and dream palaces
Trying to describe what this book is about is somewhat a disservice to the logic and flow it has when reading it
Broken up into 3 sections named after “branches” or the metaphysical plains of the Jewish tree of life; the colors of which have significance in the stories as well
Everything is given a quasi-religious ethereal context
As if the dreamer is someone juggling their faith
The subtext is very understated and more like impressions and feelings you get that might be below the surface of the words.
Identity and the loss of it through parenthood
Familial expectations
Self love and self acceptance
Isolation
The dichotomy of worlds paralleling the conflicting values or even the worlds she wants for herself
Gender fluidity is paralleled with these worlds consuming each other
Had a very new age Ram Dass mysticism like feel
Reminded me of the Ram Dass quote treat everyone you meet as if they are God in drag
Scrappy handmade texture to the whole thing brought together by the drawings that separate the sections and the liberated attitude behind the prose style.
The style becomes more and more untethered and loose as the dreamscapes bleed into each other
Full of sensory feelings like I’m walking through a fog
The whole thing feels like being submerged in a cloud
Or in a submarine deep under water
Psychedelic
Spiritual
Modern sense of humor
Left remnants of Charlie Kaufman with me
Marshmallows
Cotton candy
Fuzz
Clouds
Powder

[alyssa]

“I spent time being very excited and I spent time being very scared and I spent time being very tired and now I have spent time being beautiful.“

A strange little book for all the sentimental weirdos of the world.

[Thomas Hale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bizarre dreamlike novella vaguely infused with Jewish mysticism and a warped fairytale-parable. I think it's about regressing for comfort/coping after escaping a traumatic status quo. But also it's about a grand adventure and a magical colour mountain, and different visions of intimacy and vulnerability. This feels like a confessional story refracted through a hundred prisms made of primary school art supplies. There's also a penis fountain in it? I think it tells a story of travelling through absurd hardship to find yourself irrevocably changed (matured? purified?) on the other side. I liked it well enough.

[Carrie O'Hara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rainbear!!!!!!!!! is Absalom, Absalom! with one third the pages and twenty-seven thirds the bangers.

[Blair · Rating 1 out of 5]

no

[Chanel Chapters]

1.5

This is drugs. All the drugs. At the same time. In OD quantities.

It was like one of those AI videos where things keep turning into weirder things ad infinitum.

Read if you like Star Fire, mewling, bizarre hallucinations and I LOVE LAMP.

[Elijah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whimsical prose poetry. It does what it do.