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    The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs
    Unavailable
    The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs
    Unavailable
    The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs
    Ebook173 pages1 hour

    The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs

    By Jack Gantos

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named
    Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh
    pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with
    her mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to the
    eccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh,
    known throughout their small western Pennsylvania town
    simply as the Twins. It seems that Ab and Dolph have been
    compelled by a powerful mutual love for their deceased mother
    to do something extraordinary, something that in its own
    twisted way bridges the gap between the living and the dead.
    Immediately, Ivy's discovery provokes the revelation of a
    Rumbaugh family curse, a curse that, as Ivy will learn over the
    coming years, holds a strange power over herself and her own
    mother.

    In his third book for young adults, Jack Gantos has scripted a
    completely original drama. With gothic flavor and black humor,
    he depicts a group of people bound together by love,
    compulsion . . . and a passion for taxidermy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJun 24, 2008
    ISBN9781466824751
    Unavailable
    The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs
    Author

    Jack Gantos

    Jack Gantos is the celebrated author of Joey Pigza Loses Control, a Newbery Honor Book. He is also the author of the popular picture books about Rotten Ralph, and Jack's Black Book, the latest in his acclaimed series of semi-autobiographical story collections featuring his alter ego, Jack Henry. Mr. Gantos lives with his wife and daughter in Boston, Massachusetts.

    Read more from Jack Gantos

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    Reviews for The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs

    3.5/5

    15 ratings13 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Strange book involving love, and human taxidermy. I liked it, anyway.
    • 3/5
      How much do you love your mother? 7-year-old Ivy finds out just how much family friends Abner and Adolph, the town pharmacists, love their mother one day as she goes down to their basement to use the bathroom. She died many years before, but Abner and Adolph are brilliant taxidermists and wanted their mother to stay around a bit longer.
    • 4/5
      What is The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs? As a book, it's sort of what would happen if an old VC Andrews plot fell into the hands of a good writer and a better editor, and the 300 pages of gratuitous sex were removed. As a concept, the Love Curse is an excessive, obsessive mother-love, an Oedipal complex passed down through the generations. It's a dark, gothic story, involving taxidermy, identical twin brothers, their mother (from whom they can't bear to be parted), a young girl, and her mother. Ivy is drawn to the Rumbaugh twins; her mom wants her to leave their small town and break away from their influence. I hesitate to go into more details for fear of ruining the many, somewhat disturbing plot points.

      It's certainly an original story, and well presented. It's fairly short (under 200 pages), which feels about right for this story--any longer and it would have felt plodding and tedious. It's well-written and it's weird. I'm not sure I'd call it horror, exactly, despite what the Cataloging-in-Publication data says, but I don't really know what genre I'd put it in. I guess "horror" is the closest fit, until "gothic story" catches on as a genre label.
    • 3/5
      This book was definitely a odd read. It is well-written, so I will give it that. However, the subject is not for everyone. Fans of gothic novels might find this as a good contemporary supplement.
    • 4/5
      Narrated by Lisa Datz. OMG, this novel is a psychological horror! As you begin the story you realize that something is off-kilter with Ivy and her mother, and definitely the Rumbaugh twins at the pharmacy. But you can't quite grasp what. Eventually the story builds with one horror after another until the shocking climax of Ivy succumbing to the Rumbaugh love curse. Lisa Datz's excellent interpretation makes this story even scarier: she reads in a matter-of-fact, everyday tone that belies the twisted aspects of the situation. (Some readers have tagged this book as "incest" but the graphic scenes don't involve that.) Definitely not for everyone but a worthy read if you have the stomach for it.
    • 4/5
      This is one weird book; but I really liked it! A young girl, Ivy, finds a preserved dead body in the basement of the pharmacy across the street from her hotel. The body is that of the mother of a set of very odd/unique twins named Ab and Dolph. Ivy grows older and finds that her own interests in taxidermy are closely tied to those of the twins.Very unique read; I enjoyed the gothic feel to this one.
    • 5/5
      Gantos wins the prize this year for the weirdest book published and I wonder if it says more about me that I love it so much! But what’s not to love about a book in which twins practice the art of taxidermy on their mother, making certain that each body part is prepared separately so that she will fit in suitcases when they want to take her on trips with them? What’s not to love when you are a teen girl, Ivy, and you discover that this obsessive love, this curse, has your name on it too? Suddenly you are viewing your own mother with a different set of eyes! Gantos has a book to pair with Frankenstein or with the works of Poe. Readers will either love it or hate it; not much room in the middle for this one.And in this Library Thing Forum I can share the fact that this book was nominated for BBYA during the time my mother-in-law was in Hospice care at the end of her wonderful life. Our family divided up the watch during this time so that Dorothy would not be alone. My time with Dorothy was both wonderful and terrifying. My first day, I sat there somewhat bewildered. I watched, expecting Dorothy to pass away right before my eyes. What Dorothy did for my four hour shift is to sleep. After two days of simply sitting (and having a ton of books to read for BBYA), I brought the first un-read BBYA book from the top of my pile. And as most of you have guessed (or should have guessed) the first book I brought in to read was LOVE CURSE. Let me just say that when your mother-in-law (who is also one of your closest friends) is dying, I do NOT recommend this book for Hospice reading!
    • 4/5
      Delightfully demented and wonderfully weird.
    • 4/5
      The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs was superb.I picked it up on a whim, because I thought the design on the cover was intriguing, but, setting it on my shelf when I got home, I started getting worried that I'd bought I book I wasn't going to like. A few weeks later, having nothing else to do, I began reading it, and I couldn't put it down. The plot was intriguing, and just a bit macabre. I can understand that this book probably isn't for everyone, but I'd reccomend it highly nevertheless. An excellent book!
    • 1/5
      Really, stuffing your mother like a specimen in a taxidermist's shop so you can always keep her with you? Have we run out of things to write about? Put this one in the pile of books you use to prop up the leg of the table so it won't wobble.
    • 2/5
      Bizarre and not a little disgusting.
    • 4/5
      A young woman named Ivy, who made a shocking discovery in her small western Pennsylvania town when she was seven years old and learned a surprising secret nine years later, questions whether she has inherited the Rumbaugh curse of having excessive love for one's mother. On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with her mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to the eccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh, known throughout their small western Pennsylvania town simply as the Twins. It seems that Ab and Dolph have been compelled by a powerful mutual love for their deceased mother to do something extraordinary, something that in its own twisted way bridges the gap between the living and the dead. Immediately, Ivy's discovery provokes the revelation of a Rumbaugh family curse, a curse that, as Ivy will learn over the coming years, holds a strange power over herself and her own mother. In his third book for young adults, Jack Gantos has scripted a completely original drama. With gothic flavor and black humor, he depicts a group of people bound together by love, compulsion - and a passion for taxidermy.
    • 5/5
      I really loved this book. The prose was absolutely wonderful, maybe even a little highbrow for a kids book. The story was gothic and gruesome and fascinating and I just couldn't tear myself away from it. Really, the way Gantos used his words in this book was stunning. Every sentence is so elegantly constructed and Ivy's ruminations are intelligent and interesting. I can't think of anything more specific to say - I just loved it!