The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

The Grownup

by Gillian Flynn

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.

Reviewed by readingwithwrin on

2 of 5 stars

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“Millions of dollars later, and neither of them were happy. Money is wasted on the rich.”

I've never been a big fan of Gillian Flynn and wasn't expecting much from this book. Which I am glad I didn't.
We start with an unnamed female who gives hand-jobs for a living until she has to stop due to injury and has to become a "psychic". What really happens is that this unnamed women has been raised to be a con-artist by her mom, until unnamed women dropped out of high school and leaves to start conning on her own.
Once this women, becomes a "psychic" one of her clients needs her "help" due to her step-son being very mean and malicious to her and her son. As this unnamed women start's helping this client she realizes that something really is going on and that this women need's help from someone besides her or does she..This client's whole family is so messed up, and so is this unnamed women who in the end just goes along with what's happening and lets it start becoming her new con.
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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 5 February, 2016: Finished reading
  • 5 February, 2016: Reviewed