The Grownup

 Book 90 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on December 21

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

published 2014

Summary (via the book jacket)

A canny young woman in 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.

My Opinion

4 stars

This slim book packs a punch.  I read it in one easy sitting, both because it was riveting and because it was only 62 pages.  I'm still not actually sure what the truth was by the end but that feels realistic; it depends on who you believe.