My last book of April was another fast and furious read, easy to squeeze in as a study break. Our final law school book club selection was The Grownup by Gillian Flynn. I say final book club pick, but we’ve actually decided to continue on using skype or google hangouts after law school ends, which I am very happy about. I will wax poetical about how much I love this book club at a later date.
The Grownup definitely fell into the category of books that I was surprised that I liked. I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn a few years ago, and I wasn’t a huge fan for a number of reasons. But I really enjoyed The Grownup.
This book was originally published as a short story in an anthology, but was republished later as its own book. So it was really short, and really easy to read in one sitting in between studying for copyright and legal profession.
Because it’s so short, it’s hard to give a good description without spoiling the whole thing, but I’ll do my best. Our main character is basically a con artist, and her current occupation is being a psychic, among other things. So when Susan comes into the shop complaining of a troubled teenaged stepson that may be caused by a haunted house, our protagonist (whose name I am totally forgetting) goes to “cleanse” the house, make some money, whatever. Then she sees the house, meets the exceptionally creepy teenage boy, and is faced with the very real possibility that he may indeed be possessed by the house. And I can’t say more than this.
I liked how short this was. The writing was really good, and the characters were sharp and vivid and quirky. The twists, because of course there are twists, were all really twisty.
I will say the ending wasn’t entirely satisfying. It was open-ended, which wasn’t the problem, but it just dicn’t make a ton of sense given the circumstances. I wish one of three things had been the case: (1) the book had ended a few pages earlier than it did, (2) the current ending was set up a bit more in the earlier part of the story, or (3) the current ending was stretched out just a bit more to allow the readers to settle into it a bit more.
One of the things that we talked about in book club this week is how Gillian Flynn plays with genres and tropes in this book. We get like supernatural gothic, creepy child, evil stepmother, and a whole bunch more. It was really fun to see all of them turned on their head.
On the whole, this was a fast and creepy book, and I’m still thinking about it even though I read it a week ago. It’s haunting, but in a good way. If you like genre-bendy mysteries and particularly short ones, this may be the book for you.
I’ll be back soon with a rundown of everything I read in April and more fun Harry Potter notes, but in the meantime, have you read The Grownup? Do you agree with my assessment?