Video Book Review – The Need by Helen Phillips

The Need by Helen Phillips left me shooketh.

I need to talk about it! Let’s be a virtual, completely unorganized, and informal book club on this one.

This book really grabs me in a way that not many books do. It’s called a “subversive, speculative thriller” in its description. Sold!

It begins with a thrilling element. Molly is home alone with her two young children when she hears a sound. Oddly, the intruder seems to know an awful lot about her.

I shan’t tell you more, for t’would spoil the story! And it’s a mighty fine story, indeed.  

There are a lot of conflicting emotions within Molly. The part that struck gold for me was remembering the emotions I felt when my own children were young. The bone-deep fatigue that feels like it will never go away. The agony and ecstasy of parenthood.

“She and David had a running joke about how they both feared their kids at night the same way that, as children, they’d feared monsters under the bed. Beasts that would rise up from the side of your bed, seize you with sharp nails and demand things of you.”

― Helen Phillips, The Need

It makes it easier to understand some of Molly’s questionable choices.

The Need is such a compelling, exquisitely complex book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an advance e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.