The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I expect you might think the story I am about to tell you is untrue or perversely gothic in some unhealthy way..." (more)
Key Phrases: Kelly Hotel, Sister Nancy, Mount Pleasant (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up In this bizarre tale entrenched in genetics and human history, familial love is unabashedly and horrifically skewed, twisted, and swathed, reminiscent of the works of Poe, Shelley, and Hawthorne. Readers are introduced to the young woman narrator when she is seven, trapped in a small town and a victim of a family's dark legacy: a maternal obsession so extreme that it preys upon the minds of its maligned descendants, forcing them to pursue any means necessary to keep their mothers with them always. Ivy and her devout mother live across the street from a pair of reclusive, elderly twin brothers who run the pharmacy. Her mother used to work for the Rumbaughs, and, over the years, Ivy comes to understand her connection to the eccentric men, their deep bond with their now-deceased mother, and their fascination with the art of taxidermy, which they share with her. Soon Ivy finds herself engrossed in embalming squirrels, kittens, chickens, and whatever else she can get her hands on. They become her tools and totems to assuage her maternal-loss anxieties. Readers can only fumble and squirm through her distorted yet straightforwardly told horror story with a combination of shock, disbelief, and dread of what no doubt will come. Gantos has written an eerie, nearly perverse gothic tale of love and devotion gone completely and frighteningly haywire. This thought-provoking story about free will and the arguments of nature and nurture will definitely stick with readers, no matter how hard they try to forget it. Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 10-12. "I expect you might think the story . . . is perversely gothic in some unhealthy way," begins narrator Ivy, and despite her protestations that what follows is a "plain and true small-town story," readers will quickly discover that Gantos adheres faithfully to the gothic novel's elements and utterly shatters the boundaries between the sacrosanct and the perverse. Identical albino twins Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh are an oddity in their small Pennsylvania town, but as a child, Ivy adores the elderly pair and spends free hours playing at their pharmacy. Then she discovers their family curse--a warped, overwhelming love for their deceased mother, which drives them to horrifying acts to preserve her memory. As Ivy grows older, the twins' terrifying secret begins to make sense, and her own ties to the curse become clear. The intimations of incest, the details of mutilated corpses, a bizarre sex scene, and the story's creepy plotline may raise plenty of eyebrows and limit the book's audience, and lengthy passages explaining the curse may slow some readers. Still, teens (and college students) who have studied the gothic novel tradition will find many familiar, skillfully re-created elements in the tale, along with provocative questions about free will and genetic engineering, while horror fans will admire the author's ability to ably--even gleefully--spin such a shocking, darkly comic tale.^B Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); 1st edition (April 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374336903
• ISBN-13: 978-0374336905
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #223,019 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #9 in

  Books > Children's Books > Authors & Illustrators, A-Z > ( G ) > Gantos, Jack

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bizarre and unusual book, June 5, 2006

By	Gary H. Cassel "Flamingnet.com" (Baltimore, MD, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ivy was born with the only kind of love she ever wanted, a mother's love. She doesn't know who her father is and has no desire to find out (though Ivy's mother reveals the truth on her sixteenth birthday). But Ivy's mother does let slip that Ivy has inherited the love curse. The curse entails obsessive love of a mother accompanied by constant worry that she will die. Ivy also develops an unusual hobby: taxidermy. She is aided with this pastime by her quirky neighbors, the Rumbaugh twins, who run the pharmacy across the street. The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs chronicles Ivy's battle between overcoming the curse and letting it consume her, and uncovering the secrets of the Rumbaugh twins.

The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs was a bizarre and unusual book. The novel presented different viewpoints on free will, love, and the concept of "superior genetics" which I found interesting. But the book took the taxidermy hobby and obsessive love of a mother a bit too far. Also, the time skipped around, which I found confusing. Overall the book peaked my curiosity but was somewhat morbid; it was interesting but not an attention grabber for me. I would recommend this book be read only by young adults or older due to some of the content.

Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews.
[...]
Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Macabre, January 9, 2007

By	Nancy L. Corbett (Monroe, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's hard to imagine this book, marketed for a teen audience, ever having wide appeal with its target audience. The language is too rich and possesses a gothic lilt. The story is Faulkner's A Rose for Emily meets the Bates Motel. We have a small town with a family secret.

Whenever a story shows characters who are into taxidermy, I know we're going to find that the dearly departed probably haven't...departed, that is. This story didn't let me down. Stuffed mothers appear around ever corner, building up to the most macabre ending I've ever come across. I wanted Ivy, the story's protagonist, to rise above the Rumbaugh curse of extraordinary mother love, but she didn't. Throughout the story, her mother urged her to leave the small town where they lived and go off to college. The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs demonstrates that family weirdness doesn't just go away, it adapts.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creepy, September 19, 2006

By	Jennie (metro DC) - See all my reviews

I was torn on how many stars to give this book. On one hand, this tale of too much mother-love, taxidermy and eugenic theory is extremely well written and oddly compelling.

On the other hand, it is so well written that it's exteremly creepy to a point where reading it just made my skin crawl.

Ivy's always enjoyed spending time in the local pharmacy run by the Rumbaugh twins, but that fateful Easter Sunday when she stumbles across their dead mother, stuffed and mounted in the basement near her play area, everything changes. That is when she is drawn into a long-running family curse of mother-love. From then on, she switches between worrying about the inevitable death of her own mother and how this curse is effecting her life and if there is any possible escape.

A dark, creepy tale that's done so well that it should probably be saved for older readers.