Book Review // The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

The Grownup Book Cover The Grownup
Gillian Flynn
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Crown Publishing
November 3, 2015
Hardcover, Paperback, Audible, eBook
64

A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan’s teenage stepson, doesn’t help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.

***A QUICK Review***

I was so excited about reading this story that I joined the Book of the Month Club just so that I could receive it for free! I was psyched to read this short story by Gillian Flynn and even more psyched to share it with you. And guess what? I have a huge sad face because of it.

I was hooked from the first line…mainly because I was a bit shocked about the first line. But, hey, that’s what keeps people reading, right? I was drawn in and desperately wanted to see where the relationship between our narrator, her psychic ability, and the women that hired her, Susan Burke, would ultimately go. I just knew that Gillian was building me up for a fantastic ghost story that would shatter all ghost stories.

As I finally reached the tip top of the story and began my descent to learn the true identity of the “ghost” I was at a WTF moment. It wasn’t even a good WTF suspenseful-mystery moment that was full of I.Never.Saw.That.Coming, it was a OMG.Why.Did.I.Waste.My.Time? moment. And, I really hate that I feel like I wasted time reading this short story.

I am glad, however, that is was just a short story and not much time was invested in reading.

This is my first Gillian Flynn work that I felt very deflated after reading and wish I hadn’t been so hyped to get it. Ultimately, I let myself down by being so in love with every Flynn book that I expected the same of this story and it just didn’t perform deliver.

 


From Goodreads.com: Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly. She has so far written three novels, Sharp Objects, for which she won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller; Dark Places; and her best-selling third novel Gone Girl.

Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, and the reporter who has returned from Chicago to cover the event. Themes include dysfunctional families,violence and self-harm.

In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer, Crime Writers’ Association Duncan Lawrie, CWA New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, winning in the last two categories.

Flynn, who lives in Chicago, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated at the University of Kansas, and qualified for a Master’s degree from Northwestern University.