Running with Scissors: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: Shocked, disgusted, and laughing all at the same time.
Review: This book made me feel dirty.
This book made me laugh.
Augusten Burroughs makes Chuck Palahniuk look like
Mary Lou Retton.

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: 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: Augusten, are you OK?
Review: Loved the book, and a big thank you for it. But it makes me worry for you. You are bright, so very funny, and seem to taken all possible positives from your bizarre experiences. I hope you're OK. I loved Dry, too, and again: I thank you for it.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This book is heartbreaking, hilarious, and riveting. I could not put it down. This book is a testimony that true life is stranger than fiction. It is amazing to me that someone who had this kind of life is capable of such beautiful writing. If you like this book I would also highly recommend Angela's Ashes.

Rating:
Summary: A Quick and Enjoyable Book
Review: A quirky little book told in a scattered almost stream of conciousness style. All in all it is a captivating book, and a quick read. I finished it in two days. There are moments that might be somewhat overly graphic for some tastes, but they are brief and not without purpose. Not as good as his sequel "Dry" which shows more polish, but still an excellent book. Readers will notice a similarity in writing tone and subject matter to "My Fractured Life", especially concerning the mother characters. Readers who liked "Dry" and "My Fractured Life" should like "Running With Scissors" too.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, painfully funny, chocolate for your brain
Review: As a previous reviewer stated, I also was able to consume this book in just a few sittings. The ability of the author to place the reader into his bizarre childhood shoes is amazing. As I lapped up the last morsels of this book, I was already planning my purchase of the sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking yet Humorous content
Review: Heartbreaking story of a child that tries desperately to maintain some kind of normalcy in his abused life. The author writes in some humorous detail about the starngness of what happened to him and all that he had to go through and continued to go through in life. this is a well written and poignant book that I rate highly along with some books such as "Nightmares Echo","Dry","Sickened" and "A Child Called It"

Rating:
Summary: Truth is stranger than Fiction
Review: An interesting memoir about a man who grew up in a psychotic household, well actually two households. He moved back and forth between his crazy mother and her demented psychiatrist. He tells about his life beginning about age 11, often with raunchy details and disturbing events that make you wonder what's really happening behind the closed doors of your own neighbors. Nothing is as it appears. This book was fast-paced and kept my attention throughout as I continued to wonder how a boy growing up in this environment could later evolve into a man capable of writing such an entertaining piece of work. I was disappointed in the ending though, as it only left me still wondering. It seemed very abrupt. Maybe there will be a sequel?

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening, disturbing, funny, and a lot of other things
Review: Augusten Burroughs' memoir can make you laugh, cry, and retch in various combinations. Strange and disturbing don't adequately describe Burroughs' childhood. Being raised until pre-adolescence with an alcoholic father, a bipolar mother, and a brother with Asperger's certainly did much to shape Burroughs' life, but his teenage years spent in the house of Dr. Finch, surely one of the strangest characters ever to be described in a book, constituted the bizaare formative period that gave birth to this memoir. In the Finch house, Burroughs experienced things far removed from the realm of normal childhood including pedophilia courtesy of Dr. Finch's mentally disturbed adopted son and a disgusting ritual involving retrieving Dr. Finch's stool from the toilet to be examined for divine messages. It's hard to believe that characters that would more likely arise from some imaginative writer's mind exist in real life. Thankfully, Burroughs reminds us that at least a few can emerge enlightened and successful from such twisted childhoods.

My only criticism is that I felt the book's narrative flow was interrupted at the end when the author began jumping from story to story without going into enough depth with each one. Maybe he just ran out of interesting things to say. However, that's really my only criticism. The memoir is great. You'll most probably look back on your childhood with a more forgiving eye after reading about Burroughs'.