Book 26/30.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Book 26 on the 26th 🤩🤓
A young woman earns her money by posing as a bargain psychic at Spiritual Palms, while secretly doing some illegal sex work on the side. Most of her clients simply pay her to hear whatever makes them feel better. Her routine changes when she meets Susan Burke, who moved to the city a year earlier with her husband and teenage stepson, Miles.
The family lives in Carterhook Manor, an old Victorian house built in 1893. Susan is convinced that something evil has taken up residence there and is using Miles as its vessel. She has even discovered small trails of blood appearing on the walls.
Although the young woman has no faith in spirits or exorcisms, Susan’s fear looks like an easy way to make some extra money. But after visiting the house and meeting Miles, she starts to wonder if Susan might actually be telling the truth. There is something deeply unsettling about Carterhook Manor, as though the house itself is aware of her presence and patiently waiting for something to happen.
The opening of The Grownup is very Gillian Flynn. The narrator, an unnamed woman who makes a living by manipulating people, is exactly the kind of morally questionable character you expect from the author.
The middle of the story is easily the best part as it gets genuinely creepy, and I loved not knowing whether there was actually something supernatural going on or whether everything could be explained psychologically. The atmosphere is unsettling, and the twists kept catching me off guard.
The last third goes a little too off the rails though. The various reveals start making you question what you thought you knew, but instead of finding that intriguing, I found it increasingly confusing. The ending is deliberately ambiguous, but it crossed the line from welcome uncertainty into feeling like there was barely an ending at all. I can appreciate an unresolved ending, but this one did not quite work for me.
PS: I like to read at least three books every month, but since I had several writing deadlines due by the end of August, I was not able to read much in the last week. So I was technically cheating with this reread as it is only 67 pages long, but at least book three of August would officially be in the bag 😅 That said, I plan to start with short stories as I work my way up to writing a full-length novel, so let’s call this reread ~research~ 😎
** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing