The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs – Jack Gantos
The Rumbaughs are a creepy sort, undertakers and taxidermists sure, but the worst of it is their genetic predilection for “mother love,” an all consuming need to never be separated from their mothers which has plagued generation after generation. Now Ivy is feeling its first stirrings and even at seven she is beginning to plot ways to keep her mother with her forever.
This book deals with really gross things in such a matter-of-fact way that I wasn’t grossed out by them. But I think it’s just me. Everyone else, whether they liked it or not, has found this book to be the absolute creepiest. I felt like it needed to go further? And the ruminations on nature v. nurture and hereditary v. free will weren’t that exciting or necessary. But that may just be a place where I diverge from your average teenager who might really be wondering if they’ll ever escape their awful family.
But I think older teenagers, especially if they’ve read other gothic stories, might like it. I think I heard it called a cross between Pyscho and Coraline, which isn’t that far off.
