I wasn't quite sure whether to rate this four or five stars. It has some really great elements in it, but has just enough shortcomings to keep it from being great overall. Certainly Phillips has come up with a creepy, mind-twisting scenario, and she is terrific at ramping up the tension. She also does a fantastic job conveying the ambivalence of motherhood: loving your kids, but also really needing a break from them, even resenting their constant demands. Here's Molly with a PhD in paleobotany, yet she spends her evenings and weekends cutting up grapes and wiping up various bodily excretions. The stress, trauma, drudgery and transcendence of motherhood - and I do mean motherhood, not parenthood. This is gendered parenting. Very well done.

She also does a mostly good job of keeping it ambiguous whether Moll is indeed a doppelganger Molly from an alternate universe or whether she is some kind of hallucination from Molly's fatigue and stress.

However.

I think this aspect falls short. It is entirely possible to do a truly ambiguous story that can be interpreted multiple ways -- looking at you, Daphne du Maurier's "My Cousin Rachel." But here Phillips just falls short. What kept tripping me up is those weird artifacts that were found in the Pit. If you truly wanted to keep it ambiguous, then Molly should have hidden the artifacts, not shown them to anyone. That way the reader could question whether those artifacts exist at all. But everyone knows about the artifacts. So that implies that Moll is indeed real. In fact, the more I think about it, the more apparent holes there are. After all, if the Bible with feminine pronouns for God is what prompted the suicide bombing, then why did it happen in Moll's universe and not Molly's? Presumably the artifacts come from Moll's universe. So in her universe, was there a Bible with masculine pronouns that prompted the suicide bomber?

And since Moll came from the slightly off universe, I kept expecting something slightly off with her. Like maybe she is left-handed while Molly is right-handed. Or her noticing something else different between their two universes -- but she never did. So that makes it seem more like she's a hallucination -- except that other people saw the artifacts. At this point we have moved beyond ambiguity to confusion and loose ends.

If Molly had hidden the artifacts, and if the kids had been killed not by a suicide bomber but perhaps in a car accident, then I think Moll's existence would have been truly ambiguous and left up to the reader to decide. But as it is, I think Phillips doesn't quite pull it off. It has great elements, but is not a truly great book. Instead, it's a very good book - which is still quite impressive. ( )

I picked this up because Laura van den Berg compared it to her excellent book The Third Hotel. Initially, I had my doubts, and when I encountered the big reveal early on I was tempted to set it aside. However, I continued reading and it just kept getting better and better. I highly recommend it. ( )

Wild, unsettling, gorgeously written litfic as horror as domestic sci-fi.

How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all? ( )

The book started amazingly and had me quickly turning the pages, but then it fizzled into nothingness. At first I wondered if it was horror, fantasy, or science fiction, and I was thinking I had landed on a fantastic piece of fiction, but then it turned out to be pretty much a dud. I don't know what it was, honestly. ( )

Hard to follow, well written book that has confusion, laughter and uhhhh.

It grabbed my interest from the beginning but lost me as the story kept on. I get it. But wouldn’t reread it. Little girl is a hoot though. ( )

2 stars for awesome concept and moments of brilliance. But the execution and the ... story? Not remotely for me. And to be clear, I *am* a mom of a toddler. So I haven’t “forgotten,” I just don’t think this hits it. Not for me anyway. ( )

I have no idea what was happening in this book...and it wasn't interesting enough to make my intense confusion worth it. ( )

great idea, less than riveting execution. There is, however one passage in the book (end of chp 7) that I consider one of the best/scariest moments in written horror: "She relished the unpleasant kiss. She said to Viv, 'Okay, okay, okay- wait, I still don't know where The Why Book is, did you and Erika find it?' She stepped out of the bedroom and walked to the bathroom, just a few steps. If she hadn't been passing through the hall at that exact instant, she would have missed it: the lid of the coffee-table-toy-chest lifting up a centimeter and then immediately, gently, sinking back down."

The pacing of the story up to this exact point is stellar; you truly feel lulled into a sense of casual curiosity which makes the first appearance of "the intruder" all the more terrifying. Unfortunately, while the story seems to hit its stride in the following few chapters, it slowly slopes off and becomes more of a sci-fi meets Single White Female (1992) meditation on the pressures of mother/adult/womanhood which, while I totally respect, isn't really my bag. ( )

Motherhood is even more terrifying than I thought, but this book failed to keep things interesting the whole way through. Might have worked better as a short story for me. ( )

Far too tedious and repetitious, and it devolved into a fable about motherhood. But it started out distinctly science-fictiony and horror-inducing, in a concrete physical world. I imagine mothers might feel very differently about it, and might appreciate the homage to the tedium and repetition that is motherhood. ( )

Tough Work

“Tough” is a word that describes the faceted character of Helen Phillips’ protagonist Molly in The Need. Molly, a paleobotanist and mother of a toddler and infant, works at an excavation and at home, and both places are challenging and increasingly difficult. She’s a woman grappling with her emotions, and maybe losing her mind, both regarding the extraordinary items she’s found in the excavation pit and at home, where her peripatetic musician husband leaves her to care for their two young children, and where she comes to face two sides of life, with her children, and without them. Marginally, it’s a horror tale, but at its heart it’s more a meditation on the hardships of modern working mothers who carry responsibilities for work and home, and sometimes find themselves schizophrenic over the whole deal.

Molly has discovered some disturbing items during an excavation, items that shouldn’t be there, like a bottle of Coke with the name slanted in the wrong direction, flora that have no evolved descendants, and, most troubling of all for the furor it arouses, a bible with the wrong pronoun. It’s this last item that draws people to the site to marvel and violently express hatred. Could these be items that have leaked over into our world from a parallel dimension, where things might appear the same but also vastly different?

All this upsets her to the point that at home she begins believing that an intruder has entered her home. Sure enough, one has and as the book promo hints, it is one who knows way too much about her. To reveal the intruder here would spoil the one startling aspect of the novel for you. But it’s this intruder who launches Molly into an ongoing dialogue with herself regarding the care of her children, from the often frustrating mundane tasks of care that she relishes as love, to the fear of what it would be like to lose them. Not that she wasn’t tough before this experience, but she emerges tougher, stronger in all regards, after it.

If you discount the supposed horror and the parallel worlds aspect of the novel, many readers will find things to like about The Need. Women readers with children will readily identify with Molly, particularly with all she has to do, for the burdens of child rearing fall squarely on her shoulders. Male readers might find the constant enumeration of Molly’s tasks, of her concerns for her children, of the loneliness of being left alone pretty much to fend for herself for long periods of time, and of continuously battling herself over whether she’s mother enough, revealing and, maybe, helpful in better appreciating their partners. As to the horror and multidimensional component, if you buy the book with this in mind, you’ll certainly find yourself disappointed. ( )

Tough Work

“Tough” is a word that describes the faceted character of Helen Phillips’ protagonist Molly in The Need. Molly, a paleobotanist and mother of a toddler and infant, works at an excavation and at home, and both places are challenging and increasingly difficult. She’s a woman grappling with her emotions, and maybe losing her mind, both regarding the extraordinary items she’s found in the excavation pit and at home, where her peripatetic musician husband leaves her to care for their two young children, and where she comes to face two sides of life, with her children, and without them. Marginally, it’s a horror tale, but at its heart it’s more a meditation on the hardships of modern working mothers who carry responsibilities for work and home, and sometimes find themselves schizophrenic over the whole deal.

Molly has discovered some disturbing items during an excavation, items that shouldn’t be there, like a bottle of Coke with the name slanted in the wrong direction, flora that have no evolved descendants, and, most troubling of all for the furor it arouses, a bible with the wrong pronoun. It’s this last item that draws people to the site to marvel and violently express hatred. Could these be items that have leaked over into our world from a parallel dimension, where things might appear the same but also vastly different?

All this upsets her to the point that at home she begins believing that an intruder has entered her home. Sure enough, one has and as the book promo hints, it is one who knows way too much about her. To reveal the intruder here would spoil the one startling aspect of the novel for you. But it’s this intruder who launches Molly into an ongoing dialogue with herself regarding the care of her children, from the often frustrating mundane tasks of care that she relishes as love, to the fear of what it would be like to lose them. Not that she wasn’t tough before this experience, but she emerges tougher, stronger in all regards, after it.

If you discount the supposed horror and the parallel worlds aspect of the novel, many readers will find things to like about The Need. Women readers with children will readily identify with Molly, particularly with all she has to do, for the burdens of child rearing fall squarely on her shoulders. Male readers might find the constant enumeration of Molly’s tasks, of her concerns for her children, of the loneliness of being left alone pretty much to fend for herself for long periods of time, and of continuously battling herself over whether she’s mother enough, revealing and, maybe, helpful in better appreciating their partners. As to the horror and multidimensional component, if you buy the book with this in mind, you’ll certainly find yourself disappointed. ( )

I had to use gifs on Goodreads to describe my feelings about this one, because I can’t insert a selfie of my WTF expression. I’m not exaggerating: just check the reviews on Goodreads and you’ll see I’m not the only reader where the verb “confusion” is an understatement regarding this book. Some found it easy to understand, thus “brilliant”. Me on the other hand...⁣
Molly is a mother of two who works as a paleo botanist. During her excavation she comes across some odd artifacts, which draws the public’s interest. One night, while her husband is away, an intruder appears in Molly’s home, who seems to know everything about her, and Molly has to fight for everything she knows and loves. ⁣
Sounds like your typical domestic thriller, right? That’s where you would be wrong, my friend. I’m not going to reveal much about the plot, because this is one of those books that unless you read it for yourself, you’ll understand why it’s so difficult for me to explain it to you. I will say it is a brutally honest take on motherhood, particularly the ugly sides of it. I saw some reviews where readers were put off by the many mentions of nursing & pumping, and as a woman and a mother I have to roll my eyes at their brazen immaturity. ⁣
Reading this book I kept drawing comparisons to the movie “Tully”, and wondering if the reveal in the book (if there was one) would reflect the surprising one in the film. It might have? Or it may be something completely different? See, there is where I’ve become lost, readers. I’ve read the ending several times and I still can’t make sense of what happened. I’ve read spoiler filled reviews, but none of those explained it to me. So if you HAVE read this book and know what is going on, please DM me. ⁣
This was a quick little read, and I did enjoy the author’s writing style, even if I’m still confused by the substance. Some readers have compared this to “Bunny”, another bizarre book I read earlier. But to this reader, as bizarre as “Bunny” was, I understood the plot much more than I did here. ( )

In general, I don't select much science fiction reading. Occasionally, however, I stumble onto a novel and discover that it is sci-fi. Ok. That just happened. This book is a deep, deep dive into the psychology of motherhood in the midst of a collision between parallel universes. Yep. Imagine your worst day as a mother, as a working mother, and then multiply. An archeological dig unearths items from a parallel universe and then the games begin. Mom Molly and her doppelganger, Mol duke it out psychologically. Dad is out of town for work, so archeologist mom is stretched a bit thin. Enough. It's not bad, and that is coming from a non-sci-fi fan. Decide for yourself whether to take the plunge. ( )

A book about the fears and pressures of motherhood, love, and loss, but told in a way that I wasn't expecting. The writing and imagery in this book kept me rapt and I just really loved this. ( )

Whenever I say "Sometimes an author is more interested in impressing readers than in actually creating an emotional, intense experience for the readers"-This exactly the kind of bullshit I'm talking about.
Like, I kind of knew when I saw a bald woman staring expressionless at the camera in the author photo that I was in for a treat, but holy shit is this one pretentious pile of ivory tower acid trip. I think she pulled the Lady Gaga trick of just including a bunch of fever dream shit to make it seem like it's rife with symbolism. It's not. It's rife with ego.
I also think her reaching for symbolism backfired on her a bit.
The alternate universe where God is referred to as "she" is the alternate universe where her children are dead. You don't need to be Freud to read: 'Feminism is the death of motherhood' into that, which unfortunately, is not what the author seems to be going for.
And fuck that ambiguous ending.
And shoehorning a paper mache deer mask into the book just to create a creep visual. You want a Donnie Darko level surreal factor? Put the fucking work in. There was no reason for her husband to have made her a deer mask. If they were an eccentric as hell couple that should have been explained. But nothing else in the book points to them being total weirdos that would make each other paper mache masks as gifts.

Holy shit....And the writer actually has some serious skill. The description, the imagery, the emotion. She could write something fucking good if she would stop trying to show off and pull her lips off her own butt for a second.

So it gets two stars, not one, from me, because the writing is actually very good. It's the story that's total shit. ( )

Interestin story ( )

I hated this book. But I realized something about my reading taste! I'm okay with books about families, or about children, or about women who are mothers. But I cannot effing stand when an author gives voice to a young child so they can whine endlessly or prattle on about nothing. I'm not interested in books reflecting upon motherhood or parenthood to kids in that stage either. I hated Room, I hated Fierce Kingdom, and I hated this book too. I didn't mind the weirdness or find it confusing. It was actually the only part of this book I found interesting, and it wasn't really that inventive. The author is a competent writer, but I was so absurdly annoyed by the children in this book that I can't give it more than two stars. ( )

A quick engaging read for the first few chapters or so until it detours into a dense fog where you have no clue what's happening. This was not for me. ( )

If this is one of those polarizing books people are talking about, I think I may fall into that meh category. I felt the same way about [b:Baby Teeth|35410511|Baby Teeth|Zoje Stage|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1528990927s/35410511.jpg|56782041], too.

Yes, motherhood. Fear for the kids. Maybe not *fearing* the kids, but this is one of those "immerse you in the realities of motherhood" thrillers that then get... strange.

I don't mind strange. I like strange. The stranger, wilder, the better. Give me something new, glorious... oh... well... This is a thing. Motherhood thrillers. Psychopathic tendencies. Split personalities. It's a THING. The new, common, utterly replaceable Thing. I remember Cujo. Do you remember Cujo?

Well, this isn't Cujo. By the mid-point I kept saying to myself... cuckoo... cuckoo... and that's not all that bad, in general, but when I keep reading the same themes over and over a grand majority of the thrillers I do read, I wonder if I'm hitting a rough spot. A spot where they all start running together.

Is the market really demanding this?

Well. I'm sorry to say, I was meh'd. ( )

I don't feel like I can adequately review this without spoilers. I will say it's completely unexpected and the "intruder" ends up being a huge twist. The main character, Molly, is very well developed. Her insights into motherhood, particularly breastfeeding, were spot on. The storyline is strange. Very strange. That didn't bother me as much as the ending. I found it so clever along the way, but the ending was abrupt and disappointing. ( )

A terrifically promising premise but the prose is very flat and the action so repetitive that I ended up feeling like it could have made a good short story. Also it’s one of those stories that relies on the protagonist keeping a secret so large and ridiculously against her interest to keep that I couldn’t take her dilemma any more seriously than I can feel sorry for those kids in horror films who insist on investigating the noise in the basement themselves rather than calling 911.

This premise could have, with a better editor, become either 1) a novel about the existential terror of motherhood—if any of us stopped to think about the real possibility of losing our young child, would we ever risk having one?—OR 2) a novel exploring an interesting and worthy sci fi premise....

but in this case both possibilities are hinted at and then left half baked.

I liked the author’s deep attention to the rhythms of early motherhood, and the breast pump scenes were particularly spot on, but on the whole this was a skipper. ( )

This is my first book by Helen Phillips. I regret to say it will be my last. It has gotten lots of great reviews (4 & 5 Stars) which I had not read. I don't like to know a lot about a book before reading it, so I use other ways of choosing what to read. Maybe I should start reading reviews before reading books!

I don't know what genre this novel would fall under, probably "Thriller," but if there is one entitled "Strange", that's where I'd put it. It's mainly about motherhood and since I a mother and grandmother, I thought I'd enjoy and relate to it. But I was drained reading about the exhaustion of this working mother, a paleontologist, with two children. The older was 4-years-old and the younger was a nursing baby. Her husband, a musician, worked when and where he could get a gig, and of course, this novel is set while he is out-of-town.

The endless diaper changing, breast feeding, breast pumping, breast leaking, and "coming down" of the milk was very monotonous as was the constant whining of the 4-year-old. It all just made me feel impatient with the situation. There was a lot of repetition throughout the novel.

There is a tie to science fiction and it's a very strange, immersive concept. I won't even try to describe it and I don't want to include any spoilers. But it's just plain weird. I did like the very, very short chapters which encouraged me to keep reading until I finished the hardcover version of 258 pages. ( )

The Short of It:

I’d be lying if I said I fully understood everything that went on in this novel.

The Rest of It:

Molly is a scientist. I believe a paleobotonist if I’m remembering correctly. She spends her day analyzing fossils and giving tours to people curious about her team’s findings. Of late, some strange things have shown up in the pit, including an alternative Bible where God is a “she”, a shiny penny, and some pottery pieces. These items are odd enough to draw an interesting crowd. Religious fanatics begin to show up along with dozens of pieces of hate mail.

When not at work, Molly is completely overwhelmed by motherhood. One morning, while her husband is away on business, she finds herself scrambling for safety within her own home when an intruder shows up and threatens the well-being of herself and her two young children. An intruder, wearing a deer’s head mask.

This is a bizarre read. It’s labeled as speculative fiction and I would agree with that. I honestly did not know what the heck was going on. Is Molly out of her mind? Is she dead? Dreaming? On drugs? What? In a short amount of time, the identity of the intruder is revealed and then it gets REALLY weird.

Without giving anything away, I will say that if the point of the novel is to emphasize how motherhood can completely overtake you and change you both physically and mentally, then Helen Phillips accomplished that. Molly’s adventures in motherhood completely drain her. She is literally sucked dry by her breastfeeding son, and her daughter’s astute observations of what is going on serve to remind Molly just how much her brain has turned to mush since becoming a mother. This part, is very accurate.

But the rest of the story is very Twilight Zone-ish and odd. Some of it was disturbing to read only because it made me uncomfortable. Much of it is raw and blunt. The scientific element was interesting but not fully explored. I hesitate to say that this would be a good book for a club to discuss because I can see many hating it. Especially those who have never been a mom. But, it’s odd enough and pieced together in such a way that it warrants a discussion. In that sense, it would be great book to discuss.

Have any of you read it? From the cover, I thought the story would be about alien plants. Seriously.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter. ( )

Not for me.

The opening had some unsettling moments. A few scenes made me sit up a little straighter and think: "Wait a tic. This is interesting."

Turns out they weren't. Once Phillips revealed the plot cards she held so closely to her chest I found the entire novel to be a bluff, which is only a shame because it didn't seem like it had to be.

Depictions of the hassles of daily life with two kids were accurate and unpleasant and this was a quick read. Those are the positives.

Not for me. Better luck with my doppelgänger, Helen. ( )