I picked it up as an impulse buy at Urban Outfitters and ended up really enjoying it. I was so drawn in to the characters and the family revolving around the traveling show. I’ve found that with a lot of books lately, I’m disappointed or left hanging by the endings. This book was tied up neatly and I felt much more satisfied.
Has anyone else read it? I’ve passed it on to mom and dad for them to try out.
I haven’t read that one, but I have read Why Do Men Have Nipples?, a book of her collected columns for Willamette Week, back when she was Portland’s answer to Cecil.
I have read it (years ago) and loved it. I’ve passed it on to a few people and have found it’s very much a love/hate thing. It’s a very wow–you sure don’t know what will happen next.
Me too. Probably close to 10 years ago now, and I loved, loved it. Certainly one of my favorite novels, but oddly enough I don’t remember many specific events or characters names. I’ve lost the details and even the plot, but I just remember freakish images and getting really, really drawn in.
Also I have a bad habit of getting impatient and skipping ahead in novels but with that one it was just so well written and engrossing I actually read all the pages in order. 
“What? Is that a manual?” (asked by a witty friend).
I’ve read it too, but I don’t remember anything about it. It made the rounds of my friends though, cuz the dust jacket is in tatters.
Another interesting novel centered around carnivals and freaks is Freezer Burn by Joe Lansdale.
I still have nightmares that are similar to that book. I read the whole thing, and damn if it doesn’t stick in your head.
I read it, fell in love with it and have given it as a gift numerous times. It’s on my top 10 list of novels I love. I re-read it every few years.
A co-worker turned me onto Geek Love, I suspect she was a using my reaction to it as a test of my coolness…
I loaned it to my Dad, who thinks he has an iron hide. He got about a quarter of the way through, and now has even deeper doubts about my sanity than ever…really!
That is such a good book. Dunn explores these impossibly deep realms of belonging, concern, and desire. Sorry, it’s been a few years…Artie was a real prick.
Oh Artie was totally a prick, but they couldn’t help but love him. I love the idea of the Arturans, being totally devoted and having body parts removed. Certainly creates an interesting image.
I think what I really liked about Dunn’s writing was she got me to suspend my disbelief and accept it whole. Like the idea of Chick being able to suspend pain in people, or move things telekinetically. Like Rachel Rage said, you just get really drawn in.
I loved it, loved it’s creepiness and its weird characters. The idea of the Arturans freaked me out, and still does. Such a haunting idea for a cult - how could you possibly give up parts of your body and see the state typified by Arturo as desirable? Attaining improvement by cutting off parts of your body?!? Amputating your limbs for a belief? And yet people have given up much more in the name of their beliefs before.
I found the fates of the characters really moving as well. Especially the twins.
But unlike the OP, I was pretty disappointed with the ending, or at least the resolution of the story in the flashbacks and how everything moved into place in the present. I think when you’re reading a novel in flashback and the present has the characters in such a different situation than what is being presented in the past, you really need a surprising, imaginative way for the characters to get where they are when you started reading about them, and I remember finding the resolution of the craziness of the flashbacks pretty mundane and a bit rushed.
But this thread has inspired me to read it again. Maybe the ending will agree with me more this time.