Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious?
Review: I am deeply disturbed that so many people found this book to be funny. Since when is parental neglect and sexual abuse funny? This book is proof on how social services is failing the children of this country. This book is a cry for help. Thank heavens enough people find pain and suffering funny enough to buy this book in order for Mr Burroughs to afford a good therapist.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny Odd Book
Review: I can't imagine a more odd book. Funny thing is that it is really good. The same way as 'My Fractured Life' this guy finds the funny in odd places. I never thought I'd be laughing at some of the stuff I ended up laughing about.
Rating: 
Summary: Boy Interrupted
Review: I enjoyed the wry, self-eviscerating essays in MAGICAL THINKING enough to be curious about their author, Augusten Burroughs. In MAGICAL THINKING Burroughs dropped a lot of clues about his dysfunctional childhood, drugs & alcohol problems, indifference to education, obsessions with pop culture (and especially beauty culture), inappropriate sex partners, and crazy mother. What's not to identify with? I was intrigued, and when I picked up RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, I was halfway expecting to see my own reflection. But, that wasn't my experience. Behind the humor (one person's defense mechanism is another's survival tool!), is a portrait of a lost childhood and a sense of alienation that make's Holden Caulfield's look like a bellyache. From MAGICAL THINKING I know that Burroughs's story has a reasonably happy ending. (If not a happy ending, at least that he was eventually able to make more than Tom Collinses from the lemons life gave him.) Burroughs went through a lot (including being legally relinquished by his mother to the care of her dubiously qualified psychiatrist at age 13). While living in the psychiatrist's household he becomes the underage lover of his adopted brother (twice his age) and manages with the enabling help of his "shrink father" to scam the school system into letting him quit school before the legal age of 16. Burroughs was the archetypal at-risk youth, and it says a lot about our society that children can so easily fall off the radar screen. Read RUNNING WITH SCISSORS for the laughs, or read it as biting social commentary--but read it.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible story
Review: I had difficulties putting this book down simply because I was too good to be set aside. It is a unique and quite as bizarre story. Nevertheless, I consider this book to be memorable, highly disturbing, touching, fascinating and quite very funny. I recommend it to those with strong stomachs. However, for mild, strong or weak stomachs who love good reads,I recommend THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES.Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE
Rating:
Summary: A Crazy World WE Live in
Review: I have just finished reading Augusten Burrough's "Running with Scissors," and I have to say it was fantastic. I Live in the western MA area, and I enjoyed how Burrough's picked areas in Northampton where I have been myself. After reading, I gathered that Augusten wanted a "normal" life, as opposed to the TWO families he lived with, or the many strange situations he has encountered. BUT overall, normal is an oxymoron. Many of my friends, and myself, have gone though unusual circumstances, and we all have come out allright. Strange things is just a part of life. I would rank Burroughs with David Sedaris, one of my favorite writers. I have also picked up "Dry" and plan to read it next. Burroughs is a very gifted writer and look forward to his others works.
Rating:
Summary: What do you want to be, when YOU grow up
Review: I read this book in two sittings. When I read the notes, I wanted it to be a biography, not fiction, well I must not have read close enough. Because it is as real as it is troubling and hilarious. Augusten Burrough's boyhood unraveled for all to see. I was impressed by not only the story, which is a classic, but Burroughs style and pacing. For all the heavy topics, he seems to be able to write it as he experienced it -- a troubled maybe, but seemingly optimistic, boy. From the beginning you identify with Burroughs. He brings out those generic memories long forgotten, like waiting for dad to get home and hearing the gravel pop under the wheels of the tires. But within that you start to sense a pattern of disturbance. And even if you can't identify with his fixation for shiny objects and desire to market hair products, or play a doctor on TV. You can identify with the fear and uncertainty of a young boy growing up without the normal anchors and boundaries. Uncertain about himself, his future and his family. This is a heroic work. It is sad and painful at times but up beat and uplfiting in the end. It is not without uncertainty and sorrow, but peppered also with humor and insight. In short it is a damn good slice of a boy's life.
Rating:
Summary: Outrageous and Graphic
Review: I read this book over a four day period and found it hiliarous and overly graphic. It is hard to imagine any child growing up in this type of atmosphere, so hard in fact that if I didn't know that it was nonfiction upon starting the book then I would have never believed it to be so. I highly recommend this book.
I have started the second part of his book 'Dry' shortly after with high hopes that it would be as fun and outrageous.
Rating:
Summary: warped (in a good way)
Review: I've always been a sucker for dysfunctional writing whether it be fiction or memoirs. Some of my favorites include Wally Lamb, Frank McCourt and Ann-Marie MacDonald. Burroughs fits into the group quite nicely. As a matter of fact, you must continually remind yourself that you are reading a memoir and not a fictional work. This author had one hell of a childhood and you will likely feel a little better about your own life after having finished his story. One thing is for certain though, there are a lot of great laughs in this book and Burroughs has that priceless ability to laugh at himself through his writing. This is a quick one-two day read and one that you will want to tell people about. I definitely recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Twisted Nightmare of a Life!
Review: If you think you have had a messed up childhood, after reading this book, you'll think again. Augusten Burroughs, in his new memoir, bravely tells us about his twisted nightmare of an upbringing by his mother, her psychiatrist, and the doctor's weird family. This was a hard book to read, and I kept telling myself this is not a memoir, it has to be fiction. This story would leave anyone else grabbing their knees, cowering in a corner, and locked-up in a mental institution for the rest of their lives. Burroughs manages to tell the story with wit and humor, and honesty. We all have childhood memories we like to keep hidden, but I give Burroughs a lot of credit for exposing his abused childhood so candidly. It's amazing that his life turned out so well after such a stressful, crazy and abused upbringing.
Beautifully written, with real emotion, and yet horribly shocking, disturbing, and disgusting at times. It is a difficult book to read, but one you will find yourself racing through to the finish line. Things get so bad in the story, it forces you to laugh to get through another chapter. A captivating read you should definitely not miss. Joe Hanssen
Rating:
Summary: Poked by Some Scissors
Review: In third grade, my teacher Mrs. Relf taught the class how to properly carry scissors. At this time I was confused and wondered why they would teach kids halfway through elementary school to run properly with scissors, when at that age us children were starting to believe we were too mature for scissors and crafts of that sort. Because of this young eight year old memory, a book with the title Running With Scissors immediately caught my attention. As I read, I learned about a confused boy torn between a separated household and only seemed to want some attention. This child, Augusten Burroughs, instead of spending quality time with his family and friends, spent time with his silver collection and his mothers' psychiatrist's receptionist. In fact the only time he seemed to get any attention at all is when he was allowed to help his step dad take trash to the local dump. Augusten even began to enjoy the smell of garbage. It was a sense that was related to happiness. In the memoir this kid seems to be dragged through his childhood life by a rope tied to someone's car going down a dirt road. By this I mean he hits any bump life can throw your way.
Even though this is a dark memoir, excerpts of humor relieve the reader momentarily. If the excerpts were omitted this book of a poor helpless child would have been too saddening to complete. In the psychiatrists office the doctor has a room called the mastabatorium. Even though it brought stupid type of humor I still laughed when the doctors daughter/receptionist was caught sleeping in the sacred room and the doctor ran around the room chasing and screaming at his daughter. But even with these simple humorous events I don't think I would be able to with stand another book so depressing.
As the horrible events piled up, my feelings towards this book were getting slowly lower and lower but when Augusten visited the doctors house for the first time is when the books mood his rock bottom. This young child had admired doctors his whole life but when he arrived at the front porch, he was devastated. The home had not been cared for and was among the most beautiful in the city but it sadly stuck out like a sore thumb. This type of disappointment is the worst, to wreck a child's imagination and to slap them in the face with a pound of reality killing their dreams at the same time as setting them off into the real world is the most cruel part of the book, although necessary, was too gloomy for me bear. No child should experience pain even if they just got poked with some scissors.
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