Rating: 
Summary: Run with your scissors to cut up this book!
Review: Totally, a waste of time and reading. Augusten Burroughs should refund my money. Perhaps I'm still living in Puritanical America, but the graphic descriptions of homosexual acts was unnecessary and served only to shock the reader. Likewise, the bathroom humor, and continued used of 4 letter obscenities does not perform any literary service.
I would not recommend this book for anyone under the age of 21.
It's really not even worthy of review.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun and entertaining!
Review: Augusten Burroughs' memoir, Running with Scissors, avoids the treacherous pitfall of self-pity, although he has as much justification as anyone I've ever seen to spend the rest of his life feeling sorry for himself. When his parents' miserable marriage escalates to chucking objects at each other and making homicidal threats (Augusten's dad memorably chases his wife through the house with a fondue pot), Augusten's mom desperately enrolls them both in marriage counseling with one Dr. Finch. A jolly and Santa-like man, Finch logs in hours a day, several days a week, behind closed doors with his mom. Augusten, being a mere eleven years old, sits out in the waiting room, or goes to amuse himself with the help of cash handouts from Dr. Finch. If this seems creepy and spooky, rest assured that it gets far worse. After several months of intensive therapy, Augusten's mom announces that the next phase of treatment consists of her going off with Dr. Finch to a motel room for an unspecified amount of time. In the meanwhile, Augusten is welcome to stay at Dr. Finch's house, about which he's been secretly curious for some time. Only when he's dropped off at the house does Augusten (a dapper, neatness-obsessed kid whose favorite outfit is a dress suit) fully apprehend the horror of his new digs: a derelict, crumbling house that's clearly the shame of the neighborhood. An evil smell of rotting food and other filth permeates the place. The carpet is crunchy with toenails, dog food (a favorite snack food of the doctor's wife), and other unspeakable detritus. School-age children defecate in the living room before an audience, and nobody minds. Augusten is pretty sure he's in hell. Time passes, and Augusten is adopted as an unofficial family member. Always an indifferent student, Augusten's dream in life is to establish a massive hair-product empire, although his forays into hair treatments on himself and those around him - including his boyfriend Neil Bookman, an adoptive Finch some twenty years Augusten's senior - are less than stunning. For now, Augusten contents himself with writing extensively in his journals, tormenting the creepily dependent Neil, and making mischief with Natalie, one of Dr. Finch's daughters. Augusten's mother fades out of the narrative as Augusten comes to consider Casa Finch his true home, and indeed, her psychotic episodes (though impressive) can hardly compare to the everyday wonders of the Finch family, where poop is shoveled out of the toilet for scrying purposes, and the Bible is treated as a kind of Magic 8 Ball for predicting the future. Bitingly funny and frequently horrifying, Running with Scissors is nothing if not entertaining.I purchased this book through Amazon.com right after another great purchase, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, about an unlucky writer addicted to the personals. Both are fun, recommended books. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: I must have read the wrong "Running with Scissors."
Review: Reading this book, which I just finished, brought me a couple of surprises. The first was that, although the author is a competent writer, I could not for the life of me understand the list of accolades this memoir has received by both the elite media and average readers alike. Huh? Is this what's passing for excellence in literature these day? It's perfectly okay, but I approached it with high expectations and felt cheated by the end. It fell short of the real genius of a dazzling comedic writer like David Sedaris (an obvious influence), with his wonderfully detailed, well-structured, finely etched stories and essays. Sedaris doesn't just write humorous one liners--he writes hilarious, heartfelt situations, kooky but real characters, with a brilliant and complicated satirical eye. Burroughs sometimes ends a paragraph with a tacked-on quip that you might hear on an average TV sitcom, but that's about the extent of the comedy. Actually, this book was more on the lines of a Jerry Springer episode. You may stop to watch while flipping the channels, interested in looking at the freak show, but the majority of the time you don't feel for any of the participants--and you don't laugh at them. You cringe. They are two-dimensional, cartoon-like characters who simply disgust--it's the same with the characters in "Running with Scissors." Which leads me to the second surprise: nothing in this book was anymore shocking than something you would see on an average daytime talk show. What disgusted me were Mr. Burroughs descriptions of the people in his life and his different environments. What stands out in my mind is crusty masturbated-on blankets, heads flaking with huge dandruff scales, greasy MacDonald's fingers leaving fingerprints on everything, flabby bodies stuffed into sweat stained polyester-uniforms, decaying poultry bones left all over the house, and constant chain smoking in filthy, roach infested rooms. When I closed the book, I felt like I wanted to bathe. There's not a single person in the book to like, to root for. And that, by the way, includes the narrator, who is not a particularly, intelligent, witty or a nice person--at least not during the time frame of this memoir. He starts off being a neat freak obsessed with pop culture celebrities, but turns into a pig almost overnight. For all I know, Mr. Burroughs may have grown up to be a very charming dinner companion. But by the end of this book, you just want the freak show to end so you can switch the channel.
Rating:
Summary: Outrageous, funny, sad, and true
Review: RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is a true story, which in of itself, is very hard to believe! But true it is. Augusten Burroughs weaves a story of his life that has the reader in constant amazement, bewilderment, disbelief, compassion as well as in wonderment, in that he actually survived living the bizarre life that he had. Burroughs life makes your "average dysfunctional American family" look sane. I loved every minute of this book and wanted to read more when I was finished. Thank goodness I also picked up his next book, DRY, at the library as well! The author looks at his bizarre, bewildering life though humor, clarity, and honesty, and paints a picture for the reader that brings all the insanity to life - in full color. One does not know whether to laugh or cry or do both. The readers also have to keep reminding themselves that this is all true! Burroughs is a very talented author and I am enjoying DRY as much as I did with SCISSORS. This book will paint a very unique picture for the field of psychiatry!!!!! Really makes you wonder or makes you really beware!! This book shows a different, (yet real), side of life that makes one appreciate what one has in one's life, as well as thanking the heavens that one did not have to endure what Burroughs did. This book is excellent and I am recommending it to everyone I know. I do so look forward to all of Burroughs books. Thanks Augusten Burroughs for sharing your life with us - your look back sheds the humorous and not so humorous light on all of it. I loved this book!!! Highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Running With Scissors: A Brand Name
Review: This book is not terrible, but it is far from good. Instead of using words, the author seems to rely on mentioning brand names, tv shows, and other nostalgia in order to evoke emotion in the reader. In the first 60 pages alone, the author mentions perhaps 30 different brand names, "Sanka, Oscar Mayer, More cigarettes, Buick, Dodge, Coke, Mr. Coffee, Kleenex...." This book seems almost focused more upon product placement than on any story line. I give this book two out of five stars, only because I reserve the one star grade for books that are written by the Gap jeans wearing Anne Coulter.
Rating:
Summary: Humor for Grownups
Review: I'd compare this book favorably with David Sedaris' "Naked," which I also enjoyed. The sensory detail and emotional complexity made reading this memoir truly satisfying, even inspiring.
Rating:
Summary: FUNNY!
Review: I cant comprehend how anyone could pick this book apart and say anything bad about it, if anyone has. This book was so funny, yet so dysfunctional, at times I had to remind myself it was actually true! Many thanks to Augusten for making my day a little bit more humorous!
Rating: 
Summary: Momentarily good
Review: What drew me to this book was the shocking originality of its true-story premise: a thirteen-year-old boy is abandoned by his mother into the dubious care of her psychiatrist, and ends up having a sexual relationship with the psychiatrist's thirty-three-year-old 'son'. Now there's a pitch for a New York publishing house. Burroughs isn't coy - nor particularly indulgent - when it comes to describing his physical relationship with the man, but he's surprisingly silent on the issues that really matter. Why was he drawn into this? How did it affect him, emotionally? Does he see this kind of thing as legitimate? What impact did it have on his relationships later in life? Just when you think he's going to set aside the stand-up routine for a few chapters and focus on these more serious issues, he wanders into a series of campy, vaguely amusing vignettes about hair care, lesbians, and toilet bowl divination, many of which read like short stories he wrote long ago. And so it goes, virtually to book's end. Only in the final chapters does he give us anything which delivers on the promise of the poignant opening chapter. For the most part, he seems content to shock and amuse, and shock some more, and to dazzle us with wordplay. But for all the rave reviews, the language isn't all that dazzling. In the delicate, well-handled moments - like the walk through the waterfall at Smith, and Augusten's ultimate break with the Finches - there's a restraint and a tenderness which point to a much greater talent than Burroughs usually let's us see. In those moments, he's far less Jay McInerney and much more Edmund White. And he's wonderful. Perhaps the superficiality was a choice: I get the sense this was a project informed more by what Burroughs might call his "desire to be professionally lit" than by the desire to illuminate anything. Such a choice will leave a lot of readers out in the cold. Nevertheless, this is an entertaining memoir which certainly leaves you wondering "how it all turned out" for young Augusten in New York. Which, I guess, was the pitch for "Dry".
Rating:
Summary: Sardonic survival
Review: This first of Burrough's memoirs depicts a child's good natured fortitude and amazing survival contending with daunting adversity. Dysfunctional seems an inadequate term to describe his living conditions and rearing in an atmosphere of criminal, heart wrenching neglect and stomach turning abuse. The only reason that the actions of the parents and guardians involved is (perhaps) forgiveable is because they were obviously mentally ill. However, it is hard not to be enraged by the selfishness and cruelty of his parents. While the reader infers that the writing is cathartic, and therapeutic, "Writing with Scissors" reflects anguish over a lost childhood, despite Burrough's sardonic, self mocking recollections. What one concludes reading this work is that not only is Burroughs a survivor, but also an individual of superior intellect and ability to have come out of it all capable of making his way (apparently quite successfully) despite circumstances that would have crippled any mere mortal. Burrough's recollections are horrifyingly funny, and the memoir is rendolent with shock value. It is, however, also heart wrenching and melancholy. Perhaps amazing is the best term to describe it.
Rating:
Summary: Dysfunctional Bliss (don't miss this book)
Review: "Running With Scissors" -- by Augusten Burroughs I read Augusten's memoir in January (before "The Church of Dead Girls") and I couldn't help asking myself the same question over and over again. What would make an infamous person's autobiography worth reading? I selected this book because it was rated as one of the top ten best books of 2002, and not because I wanted to know Augusten Burroughs. After all, Burroughs wasn't a famous politician, actor, inventor or humanitarian. So what made this 300-page novel worthy of my time (and your time)? Well, part of the success of this novel occurs because of the dysfunctional childhood that Burroughs lived through. Not only was Augusten's mother mentally ill, she was also a vivacious lunatic with incredibly unique outlets for her demented personality. Abandoned by his father, Augusten was further hampered at living a normal life when his mother's insane psychiatrist adopted him. Apparently, the psychiatrist accumulated dysfunctional people and made them part of his immediate family. He either adopted them or took on their personal care. Ultimately, the psychiatrist created his own mental ward, and it made for quite an invigorating read. The psychiatrist had a special room in his practice that he called the "Masturbatorium". Need I say more? I can sum up the lunacy of this psychiatrist better by describing one specific incident that occurred in his own house. The psychiatrist's home resembled the mental wards pictured in horror movies. The home was in total disarray; dishes stacked to the roof, an unused Thanksgiving turkey rotted in a shower stall, a Christmas tree standing dead for months and months (without a single needle on a single branch) and a collapsed kitchen ceiling with a hole that exposed the house to the outside elements. One morning, Augusten's adopted father informed the family that his [body waste] was signaling events that would occur in the future. He instructed various family members (not necessarily blood relatives) to remove the poop from the toilet and to place it on an outside picnic table so that it could dry out. Each day, the psychiatrist would make predictions on the future based on the shape of his excrement. Of course this story contained elements that made for a fascinating read, but I haven't answered the question I posed earlier in this review yet? I do think I have the answer though. I mean, I think I know what makes an autobiography of an infamous person worth reading. The person has to be totally honest and willing to open up ever crevasse of their life that might mean exposing themselves totally to scrutiny of an embarrassing nature. In addition, the revealer would have to risk opening up the chasms of all the people in his or her life (even if names were changed to protect the innocent). You can't reveal your true "self" without exposing the genuineness of the people that have shared life experiences in common with you. Total unabridged honesty is a requirement. Revealing crud and humiliation is a definite by-product of this honesty. I think I'll avoid writing my own autobiography. However, if any of you are willing to open up your lives with a truly honest depiction of events and people that have made you who you are, I'll be first in line to read it. My Grade: A+ February 8, 2003
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