"The Grownup" by Gillian Flynn

Oooh! Oooh! A ghost story? BY GILLIAN FLYNN??? How did my radar miss this one for almost three months???

I was super-excited to read this book. And as it's a super-short story, it went by super-fast. (It arrived on Friday afternoon and I finished it before I went to bed on Friday night. And I did do things other than reading during the evening.) I kind of wish I'd taken the time to savor it but that didn't seem possible at the time.

The Grownup is a novella about a pseudo-psychic who is hired to stop the mysterious goings-on in a house. I feel like I can't say too much more without giving spoilers, but it's a story of suspense with a supernatural flavor.

When I was done reading it, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I almost wanted to re-read it to solidify my opinion. But it turns out I'm more eager to pick up a new book than to re-read this one right away. I bet I'll re-read this one someday--just not today.

My general opinion certainly wasn't one of disappointment. The reason I flew through the book wasn't only due to the brevity of the text; it was also a very compelling story. But I was left with the sense that there was something rushed about the plotting. It's as if the story wasn't polished enough, or there wasn't enough time spent on it prior to publication. Sam (who hasn't read it yet) said it was short enough to be perfect, but I don't think it was quite perfect. It wasn't tight like Gone Girl. Also, it bothered me that the protagonist is presented as having a facility for reading people, but she wasn't as perceptive as that might suggest.

So, I enjoyed this little story, but (possibly due to too-high expectations) it wasn't as great as I thought it would be. Will I still read every single piece of fiction that Gillian Flynn manages to get published? Why, yes. Yes, I will.

Cause and Effect

Cause: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier was assigned reading during my freshman year of high school and it was awesome.

Effect: I read My Cousin Rachel, also by du Maurier. It was only slightly less awesome than Rebecca. (Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because Rebecca is that good.) MCR is the story of a woman (Rachel, obvs) told from the perspective of her cousin Philip, who falls in love with her. Is Rachel straightforward and honest, or is she only trying to get Philip's money? P.S.: I re-read Rebecca more recently and it was just as good as I remembered. The Hitchcock movie is great, too.

Cause: I read The Best American Short Stories of 2003 for book club way back when.

Effect: I read the 2001 and 2013 editions (the latter given to me by my wonderful husband for Christmas last year because he knew how much I enjoyed the other two and he's just awesome like that). I like short stories--they often have a memorable impact, and it's so easy to squeeze another story in at odd moments throughout the day--but I frequently find that short story collections (especially those all penned by one author) are a bit uneven. You'll find one or two great stories, a bunch of mediocre ones, and several that just suck. But the Best American series manages to avoid that pitfall. Out of these two collections, the one that still stands out in my mind is The Mourning Door by Elizabeth Graver, about a woman dealing with infertility. It really resonated with me even though it's something I've never experienced myself. (Hello, four kids . . . ) It's so mysterious and strange and bittersweet and I want you to read it.

Cause: I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn for my more recently deceased book club.

Effect: I read Flynn's other two books, Dark Places (a woman pieces together what really happened the night she was the only member of her family to survive) and Sharp Objects (a reporter is sent back to her hometown to investigate the murder of a local girl and the disappearance of another). Both are just as well-written, tightly plotted and startlingly intriguing as GG, and both are somewhat more disturbing. Neither is at all disappointing, though GG is my favorite of the three. The publication of each of these books was separated by three years . . . number four should be due in 2015, and I'm looking forward to it!

Cause: I read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (as all good readers should, at some point in their lives).

Effect: I read The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, also by Adams. It's a tongue-in-cheek (what else would you expect?) detective story involving Norse gods. It was a lot of fun, but I can see why it's not as famous as Hitchhiker's Guide. Incidentally, Teatime is the sequel to a book I have not read.

Bam! That's five more books off my "Have Read, Must Blog" list. I'll be caught up before you know it!

The Book Club Report, Part I

I have watched another book club die. We finally took this one off life support last month and it slipped away unnoticed. Surely someday we'll be part of a bigger book club again, but for now, my husband and I are in a book club of two. We are currently reading The Magus (which is AWESOME). I'm enjoying the new format, because we end up having tons of mini book-club-moments before we even finish the book.

Speaking of mini-book-club moments, while looking over my Must Blog list, I noticed that at least ten of those books were selections for the recently deceased book club. I'm not sure I could write an entire post on any of them, considering how long it's been since I read each one, so get ready for me to knock out a bunch of reviews at once.

I'll start with the most recent: The Cement Garden, by Ian McEwan. This was my second book by this author (see Atonement), unless I'm forgetting another, but it won't be my last; I find McEwan's writing pretty unimpeachable. (Maybe not as perfect as Kazuo Ishiguro's, but whose is?) This rounded out an unexpected trio of recently-read books set in England's heatwave of 1976 (see here and here), and it was easily the most controversial of the three: the story of four recently-orphaned siblings (without any of the romantic Victorian notions implied in that phrase) and their decisions and behaviors upon finding themselves suddenly autonomous before their concepts of morality were fully formed. It was unnerving how McEwan made me complicit in the siblings' conduct. Things that should have horrified me were made to seem reasonable through these children's eyes.

Under the Skin by Michel Faber. This story was interesting and unique (a female driver preys on male hitchhikers), although I think Faber revealed the mystery behind the main character's actions too soon. If just one line had been cut (the one about the chef), leaving the word "vodsel" enigmatic for a bit longer, I think it would have been a vast improvement. I couldn't really picture what Isserley looked like, either. Somehow her description didn't sound anything like Scarlett Johansson, but I'm still interested in seeing the movie anyway.

The Melting Season by Jami Attenberg, in which a not-so-bright Nebraska girl leaves her crumbling life behind her and makes a run for Las Vegas. I think I first heard of this book in one of those single-paragraph book reviews in a magazine . . . and I think that magazine was Glamour, if that tells you anything. I wish I could re-read that review now, so I could see what drew me to this book. I'm fairly certain it wasn't anything about penile enlargement surgery, anyway.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.  Unfortunately I found this one disappointing when compared to Morton's The House at Riverton. It's the story of a girl who was raised in Australia; on her twenty-first birthday she's told that she had an unremembered childhood in England. There were plenty of secrets and mysteries, but I think the book suffered from my excessively high expectations (the ones that had me thinking Kate Morton's books are great big thick bundles of awesomeness). That's not to say I didn't enjoy it--it was still pretty great--but I didn't love it the way I thought I would.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. LOVED IT. It's the story of a cad whose wife disappears under suspicious circumstances, and it's really just a thriller without any especially literary characteristics (though I have no complaints about the writing), but it was full of twists and turns and suspense. I still remember with startling clarity the shock of the text message Nick receives four days after Amy vanishes. And there was just NO good place to stop reading this book. No doubt about it--this one reached critical mass, and early on. I've since read (and loved) Flynn's other two books, though this remains my favorite of the three. I'm looking forward to the movie adaptation out in September. Ben Affleck will make a perfect Nick Dunne, if I can get over the way he always seems to be spitting while he's talking.

Stay tuned for Part II of The Book Club Report . . .