Molly is a paleobotanist, a wife and a mother to two young children. Work has been intense after she started finding objects that defy logic among plant fossils. Life at home isn't easy either, especially after an intruder enters the house. These two things, the objects and the intruder, are connected, and Molly’s motherhood ends up being challenged.

The Need is a weird book, to say the least. Helen Phillips just throws the reader head first into this absurd story and lets you make sense of it. I don’t want to say any more of the plot, because it’s best to enter it as blindly as possible. I did, and that worked well - I devoured this in less than a day. But The Need certainly isn’t for everyone and I understand the critique that comes across in reviews, especially about the overwhelming and repetitive descriptions of motherhood, the nonsensicality of it all and how nothing ends up being really explained. Yet, I fell in love with the story, which surprises me because I’m usually not a fan of open endings. I just thought that the dualities of motherhood were expertly described, though I’m not a mother myself. If I am one day, I would definitely want to reread this!