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seraphjewel 's review for:
The Grownup
by Gillian Flynn
So I really enjoyed Gone Girl and was interested when I saw the author was writing a ghost story. I've been in the mood to read something spooky for a while now and picked this up hoping it would hit the spot. It did, but in other ways it left me feeling a little disappointed. I guess the best way to explain what I mean is to talk about the story.
Right away we have an unreliable narrator in a literal sense: she is a con artist, currently pretending to be a psychic. She seems to pride herself on reading people, but that tendency goes out the window once she's taken to the "haunted house" in question. Either that or she chose to see things a certain way and never really tried looking beyond that. Maybe I just had a better vantage point as a reader, but I couldn't believe no internal alarm bells were going off in this woman's mind.
The overall tone of this story was actually pretty good. I enjoyed the narrator's perspective and there were some creepy, spine-tingling moments. The problem for me was in the ending. In Gone Girl, this author did not play into my expectations as a reader at all. She really surprised me with what happened, which is what made the book enjoyable. This one did pretty much exactly what I expected. For a few sentences, I thought it was going a different route after all, but nope. It went the predictable and expected route. How disappointing.
Don't get me wrong, it was an enjoyable read. But it ended up being pretty standard. I don't want to say too much else without spoiling. If you're a fan of this author's work, you'll probably enjoy it. But if you're hoping for something that'll defy expectations, this story will disappoint you.
Right away we have an unreliable narrator in a literal sense: she is a con artist, currently pretending to be a psychic. She seems to pride herself on reading people, but that tendency goes out the window once she's taken to the "haunted house" in question. Either that or she chose to see things a certain way and never really tried looking beyond that. Maybe I just had a better vantage point as a reader, but I couldn't believe no internal alarm bells were going off in this woman's mind.
The overall tone of this story was actually pretty good. I enjoyed the narrator's perspective and there were some creepy, spine-tingling moments. The problem for me was in the ending. In Gone Girl, this author did not play into my expectations as a reader at all. She really surprised me with what happened, which is what made the book enjoyable. This one did pretty much exactly what I expected. For a few sentences, I thought it was going a different route after all, but nope. It went the predictable and expected route. How disappointing.
Don't get me wrong, it was an enjoyable read. But it ended up being pretty standard. I don't want to say too much else without spoiling. If you're a fan of this author's work, you'll probably enjoy it. But if you're hoping for something that'll defy expectations, this story will disappoint you.