The Need

An Amazon Best Book of July 2019: Teeth-grindingly tense? Check. Mind-bogglingly surreal? Check. An ending you’re going to debate with your friends? Check. Helen Phillips playfully nudged the concepts of reality and fate in The Beautiful Bureaucrat, but this time she gives those concepts a big ol’ shove and then spins them like a top in The Need. When paleobotanist Molly uncovers strange artifacts at a dig—including a plastic toy soldier with a monkey tail and a Coke bottle with the letters slanted backward—the finds are intriguing but not alarming. But sleepless nights devoted to her two children under age 5, more weird discoveries, and inexplicable sounds twist into an acidic fear. And the source of these oddities, once revealed, is both more horrible and more sympathetic than Molly could ever imagine. Phillips makes motherhood a transcendent power even as she gives it a ferocious bite. Luckily The Need is a fast read, because I dare anyone to try to sleep after starting the first chapter. —Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review