The Need, Helen Phillips
The Need, Helen Phillips
4 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Need

Author: Helen Phillips

Narrator: Alex Allwine

Unabridged: 6 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/09/2019


Synopsis

***LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION***
Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time

“An extraordinary and dazzlingly original work from one of our most gifted and interesting writers” (Emily St. John Mandel, author of The Glass Hotel). The Need, which finds a mother of two young children grappling with the dualities of motherhood after confronting a masked intruder in her home, is “like nothing you’ve ever read before…in a good way” (People).

When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. She’s been hearing things these days. Startling at loud noises. Imagining the worst-case scenario. It’s what mothers do, she knows.

But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.

Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. Molly slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.

“Brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly), “grotesque and lovely” (The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice), and “wildly captivating” (Oprah Daily), The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives and “showcases an extraordinary writer at her electrifying best” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

About Helen Phillips

Helen Phillips is the author of six books, including, most recently, the novel Hum. Her novel The Need was a National Book Award nominee and a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Her collection Some Possible Solutions received the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A professor at Brooklyn College, she lives in Brooklyn with artist/cartoonist Adam Douglas Thompson and their children. Find her online at HelenCPhillips.com or on X @HelenCPhillips.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Miranda

I have read my way through 315 books to bring you my Top 10 Books of the Year (video). Now you know that this one made the cut, check out my video review to see the others! "You're scary, Mommy." Viv was laughing. "I mean, you're scared, Mommy."Molly, archaeologist, moth......more

Goodreads review by Lala

lol......more

Goodreads review by Nilufer

Four dimensional, timeless space as infinity, between science fictional and supernatural, fear attracting, shocking stars! WOW! This book is the dimension of imagination! It stands at the area which we call the TWILIGHT ZONE! NANANANANA! Eerie music theme stops! This book is amazing mashup of Twili......more

Goodreads review by karen

oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for BEST HORROR 2019! what will happen? four months before pub date and it’s already clear that this is a very polarizing book. it’s also a book best gone into blind, with no expectations about whether you will exit through the “love” or “hate” tunnel. i kno......more

Goodreads review by Tammy

My husband was out of town so I went to bed with a pile of ARCs fully intending to read several pages of each before making a decision about what to read next. I picked up The Need and woke up the next morning amid a slew of untouched ARCs with a large golden retriever contentedly snoring next to me......more


Quotes

"Listeners immediately know something is wrong as Alexandra Allwine's urgent tone opens this tense and eerie novel. There's an intruder in Molly's house, and as she crouches in the dark, clutching her two small children, her confusion from sleep deprivation spirals into primal fear. The audiobook jumps between Molly's eventual confrontation with the intruder and her time as a paleobotanist, when she spends her days digging up plant fossils from "the pit" —from which strange objects start emerging. Allwine's voice has a smoky guise that suggests the hazy days Molly so often experiences after sleepless nights. Soon, the secrets of this literary thriller start to unravel, and the dark realities of motherhood rise to the surface."