Rating: 
Summary: One of my all time favorites
Review: This book is by far one of my all time favorites. Even though you are deeply disturbed, you can't help but be interested. The book is blunt, tells it how it was for Burroughs when he was young. The style of writing is amazing. I recommend this book to everyone I know.
Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't stop reading it
Review: As a big fan of RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, I enjoyed DRY as a second memoir. Burroughs has a wonderful writing style. A very enjoyable book. It's funny, sad, and interesting all at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: My Oh My...
Review: Its hard to believe when reading this memoir that a young boy (Augusten) could go through such freaky and beserk situations during his life. His mother is a poet suffering life complications and marriage trouble with her husband whom soon divorces her after they have a bloody fight. His mother soon sends him to live with her pshyciatrist and his intriguing family, each of them a world all in their own. When it comes to boredom Augusten and the other children in the house fill up their flowerless life with an electro-shcok therapy machine and cosuming drugs like chocolates. It is a story with very dark humor of a boy who could never have let go on the handles of life despite the challenges bieng shoved in his face. The way each character in this novel is developed is excellent. Each character posseses their own personality traits each adding to the story humor, emotion, and sympathy. I highly recommend this book if your looking for something different and crazy to read, dark, moody, humorful, and an excellent write.
Rating: 
Summary: mildly interesting, a couple good laughs
Review: This is really a pretty lightweight book. I'm a slow reader, so it took me a couple sittings to finish it, a faster reader could probably read it in one sitting.I really did feel that I was cheated by how easy it was to read, about how big the type font was, about all the white space on each page. I imagine that if they had printed it like a normal book it would only have been half the current size. The material itself was also presented in an over simplified and glossy way, which also made it a quick read. And it tended to be pretty repetitive after the first half, as well. The author just goes on and on about how gross, weird and disgusting the Finches are, taking occasional breaks to moan about how hopeless his mom is. Nonetheless, there were a couple good belly laughs in this book. And it made an interesting story, in a freak-show kind of way. But since everything was treated so lightly, none of the content made much of an impact or had much of an emotional resonance. Worth borrowing from the local library for some light comic relief. Reading about real life is almost always better than watching a sitcom, after all.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Journey if You Open Your Mind
Review: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some will read "Running With Scissors" and focus on the horrors of the dysfunction and abuse. Others may read it and be offended by the open depictions of homosexuality. I, however, rejoice in the author's ability to find humor in sadness. I rejoice in the author's ability to present an honest account of a period that might have stifled others. I found the book beautiful in the same way as "Nightmares Echo", "Lucky", "A Child Called It" and "My Fractured Life". In fact, it reminded me a great deal of "My Fractured Life", except without the Hollywood references. The ability to find beauty in sadness and humor in despair is peculiarly stirring. It is a wonderful journey
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I hesitated to buy this book but I read it all in two days and probably could have finished it in one but sleep is required...This book was so easy to read and loved every page of it. This is the first book that I have read by this author but I will read his others.
Rating:
Summary: This really happened??
Review: Running With Scissors is a wacky, unorthodox, coming of age memoir. Augusten Burroughs is the offspring of two unstable parents. His alcoholic father and psychotic mother get divorced when he is young. He grows up looking at himself in the mirror, imagining he is a star while his father is drunk and his mother is off at poetry readings. She is an aspiring poet, but nothing she writes seems to make the cut. After his parents divorce, Augusten lives with his mother and doesn't see or hear from his father for the rest of his young life. His mother's daily visits to her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch, get out of hand when she signs legal custody of Augusten over to him. Augusten rides the bus back and forth between the Finches' house and his mother's house, all the while embarking on crazy adventures, such as finding a boyfriend (he's 33), cutting a hole in the kitchen ceiling (to put in a window of course), pretending to commit suicide (to get out of going to school), not to mention dealing with his psychotic (and now lesbian) mother and coping with the strange life he lives with Dr. Finch and his large family.
Augusten presents his memoir in short essays filled with detail, and his choices in what details to emphasize seem unique and pleasant. He writes about half of a life you've only imagined; no rules, but everyone is insane. There are skewed morals and beliefs all around. It keeps you guessing, and quite a few surprises pop up at the turn of a page. And while the uniqueness of the memoir may appeal to some, others may be appalled and taken aback. His life is presented here, uncensored and in full detail, taboos and all. Some people may not appreciate the humor mixed in with the often horrifying truth.
With all of that said, this book is addicting. I enjoyed the whole thing, start to finish, funny, sad, scary, all of it. After reading one essay, you want to go on to the next, immediately, even after it's over (I can't wait to read Dry). It's kind of like a morbid fascination. It's a look into the lives of the insane, and it's funny and beautiful in small doses or large ones, and can be read over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Well written
Review: This is a well written, though sometimes edgy and imaginative look at child abuse/molestation and the twist and turns the human mind will take as it makes the journey through life looking for wellness and serenity.
Though many of the reviewers found this book "Over the edge", I think that is what is captivating. Oh dont get me wrong it does deal with severe issues and yet, there are moments of laughter in the midst of the sadness. I think the author did a great job in penning this memoir. I rate it up there with the reality/gut wrenching and courageous healing "NIGHTMARES ECHO", and the sad yet all telling look at abuse with a Christian approach of healing in "BEAUTY FOR ASHES"
Rating: 
Summary: Sucks
Review: The toilet bowl message concerning this book points down. Mothers of young teens should not read this book unless they want graphic images of abuse carved as with shattered crystal in their hearts. I wish I had never picked up this book.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Disturbing, But Highly Entertaining Read
Review: Yes, "Running With Scissors" is among the scariest memoirs going. It is a non-stop "WTF!" moment. But, at the same time, it reads like a carnival funhouse -- completely distorted and disorienting with a comedic value of something David Sedaris would write if only his life was messed up to begin with and not made messed up by inventive storytelling (don't get me wrong, David Sedaris is my idol). Everything about this book spells disaster: the truly dangerous and psychotic mother, the utterly absent father, the unorthodox pill-pushing psychiatrist/foster father, the illegal affair with an emotionally unstable man twice his age. These are all people one might find in a made-for-TV thriller... not likely candidates for a memoir, and certainly not for a memoir that focuses on the comedy of the situations. How CAN be there be comedy in these situations? But, lo and behold, there is -- and you'll feel dirty for laughing. Augusten Burroughs has an easy to read style of writing that is never obnoxious or beyond your vocabulary. While not every chapter is cohesive (there is one in particular that seems to jump to a completely different story in the middle of the page), it is, for sure, a dynamite piece of literature. While it's not for the squeamish -- or staunch Catholics for that matter -- it is a truly original book that decides to screw with the unwritten rules of memoir writing.
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