Rating: 
Summary: An Unmemorable Memoir
Review: In one word, I found this book to be "junk". It's a perfect example of how vacuous our culture has become, and what now passes for good writing is a shallow piece of nothing like this. Whether it's true or not, there is absolutely no depth of feeling or analysis. After awhile the quality of shock wore off, and I put the book down thinking to myself: "Who cares?"The accolades poured on this book astonish me now that I've read it. I will be extremely vigilant about picking up a "memoir" from now on. It seems people have become a little too navel-gazey for my taste, thinking their story has something unique or special or in this case, quirky, that the world must know about. Perhaps that should be one of the criteria for a writer undertaking a memoir of him/herself: how badly does the world need another one of these, and am I really so special that everyone needs to know about me?
Rating: 
Summary: Not funny, not entertaining
Review: This book is just mildly amusing & more disturbing than anything else. There is one "gross out" scene after another not to mention pedophilia, coprophilia, substance abuse, animal cruelty, rape, & child abuse. This is supposed to be funny? Perhaps it would be a more bearable read if the author were somewhat articulate, but regrettably, this is not the case. If you are looking for a really funny read in this vein, try David Sedaris.
Rating:
Summary: Really, no stars
Review: I bought this book, because of the great review I read in the paper. Yet, the writer of the review forgot one thing. That you could also find it in the "Adult Porn" or "Gay Porn" section of your nearest bookstore!!! I didn't even finish reading it, and took it back to where I purchased it for a full refund. It started out as enjoyable reading, funny, odd, etc., but in no way did I expect to read the detailed descriptions of the authors trysts with a gay man. Couldn't he just have hinted at what happened, did he feel that he needed to give the reader every disgusting detail of what happened? Did he mentioned any of these parts of the book during his book signings or tv show appearances? How many books would he have sold then? I don't need trash like that in my house, thank you. Maybe we need to put ratings on books like we do with CD's and DVD's for sexual content, etc. Yuck.
Rating: 
Summary: Left Me On The Fence
Review: This book was recommended to me by a friend with a very dry and cynical sense of humor who absolutely loved the book and said she couldn't put it down. I read it because we tend to like similar books and movies. When I was finished, I couldn't quite decide how I felt about it. Much of the time during my reading of the book, I felt like a rubber-necker coming onto a bad traffic accident: I wanted to look out of morbid curiosity, but I felt wrong for wanting to look and then, ultimately, felt sick about what I saw. One moment I was horrified, the next laughing, the next fascinated (I have degrees in psychology and social work), and the next I felt like crying. Signs of a good book? Sometimes, yes. But do I feel that this was a good book? Not necessarily. I feel bad for the author that this was his upbringing, but it also troubles me that he seems so detached from it all and doesn't mind profiting from the telling of his dysfunctional life story. I plan to read his next book ("Dry") to help me form a better opinion about him as a writer. As another critic said in a review, it will be interesting to see how he fares as a novelist after writing his memoirs. So, bottom line? I think it was an... interesting read.
Rating: 
Summary: Tragically Hilarious
Review: Bypassing the plot summary you can get from the other reviewers, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to most people. I would not recommend it to my fundamentalist Christian friends or homophobic friends. But anyone else should appreciate the dark humor. The author somehow manages to reflect lightheartedly on what would otherwise be considered a tragic childhood by today's politically correct, over-reactive, society. Yes, what happened to this guy was awful, but his ability to look back on it and make us laugh is wonderful. I was captivated the whole time, never really wanting to put this book down. I couldn't wait to see what happened next. Burroughs really knows how to tell a story, and since it's based on truth, I really appreciated the epilogue.
Rating:
Summary: Burroughs's personal song could be I will survive
Review: For many reasons, Augusten Burroughs's personal mantra could be Gloria Ganyor's 'I will survive'. It is amazing to see of how much this guy went through and came up a winner. Yes, he is. Living among those people many others could have surrundered and gone crazy. If his book were fiction, it would be too, well, unbelievable to be true. But since it is Burroughs's memoirs, we do believe in those 'characters' that he brings to his pages. We all know that there is all kind human being out there --even the most strange. So, why not have them all toghether in the same house? If it were fiction we'd say it is strange to have them all in the same place, but it is reality and it is not by chance that so many strange people were gathered in a house. Burroughs has a powerful voice, and his narrative is dense and funny at the same time. Sometimes we forget how bad that could be living in such an environment, because it seems that he had fun indeed with some things --not everything, of course. 'Running with Scirssors' is one of the best memoirs released lately and it must be discovered to open people's mind and eyes to how really complicated life can be sometimes, but, we can still manage to be a survivor.
Rating:
Summary: Burroughs VS. Sedaris
Review: with this piece, burroughs takes us into so many places we don't want to go and even more places few have already visited. the similarities between him and david sedaris, whom he is constantly compared with, end with homosexuality and conversational prose. that's about the end of it. this is a story about a kid from a dysfunctional family thrown into an even more dysfunctional family. the characters are perfectly developed and extremely interesting. the story has a hard time keeping up with the characters because the timing is loose and the topics wander. it is so full of people who you can't feel good about or sorry for, i found myself just wishing hannibal lecter would show up and make burgers out of them. still, i found quite a bit of it funny when it wasn't trying to be funny. there are several times when burroughs is deliberately trying to be humorous and that's when he falls flat. there are three or four scattered depictions of straight out homosexual sex and if you're not cool with that sort of thing, you will be as surprised as i was to have it hit you in the face without warning. i would rather not read about anything like that, myself. when i say explicit, i mean it. it's gay porn sometimes.
Rating:
Summary: Trash posturing as a true story.
Review: A disfunctional family that lives in filth and excrement. A line or two may be funny, but a normal reader would perhaps miss them in the miasma. A waste of time reading about wasted lives. There may be some truths in Burrough's memoir, but I believe that most of it is just his mind play.
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!
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