The Grownup - Gillian Flynn

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. (link)

Review: 2/4

This was a very short book (technically a short story by definition) so this review will also be short. I rated this pretty low because I was really excited about the way the initial part of the story was going; a young woman is working in a prostitution shop disguised as a fortune telling salon, where she builds up her own clientele and starts to hone her “abilities” to read her clients. One day, a flustered woman sweeps in and causes curiosity to our narrator (unnamed). I loved the narrator that has narcissistic traits (so well known by Gillian Flynn as an author) and I liked the way she described being able to read people to make a profit in sex-work and “aura-reading.” I love most things to do with tarot, aura reading, witches, etc; and I even appreciated the narrator’s disbelief in the systems and using them to her advantage. 

I liked the second part of the trifecta where this flustered woman (Susan) begs our narrator for help regarding a haunting in her Victorian era house; I was really looking forward to a ghost story! I was excited to learn about Gillian Flynn’s ghost-story/haunting writing since I’m so well acquainted with her sociopathic characters (I.E. Gone Girl). I liked the slight scaries like the blood oozing from walls, antiques in a Victorian house, and a wickedly possessed step-son. All the classic signs of a good ghost/haunt story! Then, when our narrator is asked to check out said house, the storyline goes downhill.

Now the third part of the trifecta; Susan is married to one of our narrator’s hand job clients… That’s a good detail and cute little psycho reason for Susan to be crazy, right? I think this was the last thing I liked about the story before I decided “that’s enough for me.” 

Miles, Susan’s supposedly possessed step-son, is seemingly in danger of his step-mother, and is convincing enough to persuade our narrator to help him make his grand escape. He details abuse and neglect committed by Susan, which all tracks because of the web she has painted about her “possessed” kid. This is where it gets sticky; Miles is a clear manipulator and psychopath/sociopath (I’m too lazy to read and decipher which one). 

The book ends with our narrator being the “kidnapper” of Miles yet scared of his actions and manipulations. My main beef with this is just how unrealistic the way Miles acts and speaks. This form of communication, manipulation, and con-ery made sense in Gone Girl when Amy Dunne had been mistreated her whole life. But it just didn’t fit the story of young Miles, and it felt heavily forced to have a “big plot twist” when I feel it would have been much more enjoyable if it was a simple ghost story with crazy people being affected by the household.

I didn’t love it, but I do love the playlist; This book gave me unexpected angsty yet upbeat, running from the truth vibes… like a garage rock/slightly quirky tech music playlist. So enjoy that!

Spotify: LINK