Book Review: The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

Title: The Grownup

Author: Gillian Flynn

Publisher: Broadway Books

Pages: 64

Format: E-book

Published: November, 2015

Price: $4.56 -> Rp62.267 (Amazon)

Rating: 5 / 5 stars

Date started: November 8, 2015 - Date finished: November 8, 2015

Synopsis:

Gillian Flynn’s Edgar Award-winning homage to the classic ghost story, published for the first time as a standalone

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. 

“The Grownup,” which originally appeared as “What Do You Do?” in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology, proves once again that Gillian Flynn is one of the world’s most original and skilled voices in fiction.

Review:
This story began with an unnamed narrator, which is also the main character telling the readers about her life. The main character is basically a con-artist, she has been a con-artist since she was little. When she became an adult she gives men hand-jobs for a living. She has given thousands of hand-jobs to men and she developed a carpal tunnel syndrome because of it, which made her do a career switch and now she's a psychic. One day, a customer by the name of Susan Burke came to our main character's business to get her fortune read. Here our main character found out that Susan was struggling to feel comfortable at her new house because she saw blood trickling out from the roof to the floor and that she feared her stepson is possessed.

Our main character saw this as an opportunity to squeeze more money out of Susan, our main character proposed a house cleansing when she visited Susan. In her first visit she met the stepson, Miles and she too agrees that he is a bit odd and weird. After Susan agreed to a house cleansing, our main characters did it a few times and during those times something strange started happening. Then one day, Miles told our main character to leave and not come back because if she came back she's going to die.

Out of curiosity when our main character got home she looked up the house where Susan lives cause she remembered the house was old and had a name to it. She then found out that the house has a dark and bloody past.

“Books may be temporary; dicks are forever.”

Well, perhaps I'm a little biased because I do love Gillian Flynn because she's my queen! But, on a more serious note this is a fantastic short story, honest to God. I've never really been a fan of short stories (as I've said numerous times) but this was a damn good one.

The story was typical Gillian Flynn in a sense that it's a dark story filled with these mentally messed up characters with questionable morals plus her signature plot twist. The beginning was a bit boring but it's just because it was the introduction of our main character part. As with any Gillian Flynn's books the readers will always get ending of the story wrong. For instance, In the middle, for me I was sure this was going to be a horror book where a ghost will come out but then as I kept reading I realized I was way off.

“People are dumb. I’ll never get over how dumb people are.” 

I don't know if it's just me or did anyone who've read this felt the plot twist coming? Because I didn't. Alas, the story did end too soon but then as any Gillian Flynn's books the ending left you hanging and craving for more.

Me. After finishing this book

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