THE GROWNUP BY GILLIAN FLYNN
Genre: Short Story, Mystery, Thriller
Source: Blogging For Book (In return for honest review)
“People are dumb. I’ll never get over how dumb people are.”
― Gillian Flynn, The Grownup
Synopsis:
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.
*I would like to thank Broadway Books and Blogging For Books for the copy of this book in return for an honest review*
This review won’t be very long or go into much depth due to the fact that this is a short story and I do not want to spoil anything. Flynn had wrote this for George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology.
In this short story Flynn proves that she is a mastermind and has a way of crafting this phenomenal, complex and disturbing characters. Whenever I read something by Flynn I am always caught off guard and shocked because she manages to make you believe one thing and then throws in a bunch of twists and turns. She is the ultimate plot twist creator. I felt like the story was the perfect length and at the end I did not feel like I needed more, it ended at a good point. I am always hesitant with short stories because I feel like I am never given enough, but that was not the case for The Grownup. The characters really make Flynn’s stories and these ones did not let down her reputation. They were disturbing and layered with issues.
Overall all I can really say is that Gillian Flynn continues to shock and amaze me. This story was absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys the rest of Flynn’s work or is on the edge of picking up something by Flynn!
