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Friday, November 13, 2015

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Pulication Date: November 3rd, 2015
Pages: 65
Song I Played While Reading: None
Rating: 3 stars

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 was in. A keen observer of human behavior, your 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, destine help matter 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.

The Grownup can be described in one word for me: unexpected. I've been going back and fourth on what to rate this, simply because it had a crappy ending for me. I hate open endings, and this had the mother of all open endings. It's so broad that it almost negates the whole story. What was the point of writing this if you aren't even going to finish it? If you're going to throw us for that big of a loop? I'm a huge fan of Gone Girl because of the writing, and this story doesn't disappoint in that department at least. If you hadn't told me who the author was, I still would've guessed her.
Once we got to the middle of the story, I felt myself starting to get hooked. I was creeped out, trying to guess what was going to happen. Knowing Gillian Flynn (and having read Gone Girl) I was prepared for a huge, scary twist that would knock me off my feet. Instead, I was left with a gaping hole. I understand her idea behind the ambiguous end, but it was executed in such a fashion that I felt like the whole book was just one big lie. There's no definite answer for anything.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

More info on this book here
More about Gillian Flynn here 

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