Running with Scissors: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: You gotta have a stomach.
Review: You've got to have a stomach for this one. Augusten Borroughs is a gifted writer. He definately can make you visualize a scene. But this book is not what I thought it would be from all the reviews I read about it. I find nothing at all hilarious or funny about this boy's disfunctional life. It's hard to believe, although I knew there is life like this, that there is a family like the Finch's and that at the small age of 12-13 he knows he is gay and has always known. I wonder if he is gay at all sometimes, but rather tends to do the things and wants the things that we label as female. His very graphic discriptions of his sex life with Neil I think are a bit too graphic. I felt compassion for him and for all the children (and adults for that matter) out in the world that experience such a terrible life. If you are faint at heart, don't read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Running with Scissors (and other rules to be broken)
Review: I bought this book along with its companion book Dry last spring during a severe depressive episode that landed me in a psychiatric hospital for a summer visit. I found that I could not start either book. It was frustrating, I couldn't get past the first chapter of either one. My therapist would ask, "What are you reading?" And she nodded, approving of me reading these books. I was however, not reading the books but reading what my therapist calls, " The equivalance of chewing gum." So, I appeased (lied to) my therapist by telling her I was reading literature, when in fact I was reading nothing more taxing than cereal box. It is now a full year later, and I have just finished Running with Scissors. I literally could not put the book down for the past 2 hours because I was laughing till I cried over the lunacy depicted in the book. I kept visualizing my own whacky childhood and realized that there are people out there who completely understand what it is like to grow up in crazy. I read Dry first, which also had me howling with laughter and recognition of a fellow alcoholic. I was I'll admit, a little afraid of what Scissors would tell. While I do not regret the past, nor wish shut the door on it, I am kicking myself that I didn't read both of them sooner. What I learned from both of the books is that optimism, acceptance, acerbic humor and reading turds like tea leaves is a perfectly fine way to remember childhood. Thank god I got my meds balanced and took the plunge on these two books! Thank you Augusten Burroughs for being fearless and giving the world this splendid gift of crazy.

Rating:
Summary: hilarious, sad - few silver bullets to solve the problems
Review: I came across this book while browsing best sellers at the local book chain and I am glad I did. I recent days I have read some books close to this genre like Paddy Clarke hahaha, wasp factory - all are about young adolescents but nothing is quite like this - nowhere are the young adolescent gay and nowhere life is so dysfunctional. Actually in real life I have seen at least one family which resembles the authors family and the authors descriptions are sp unbelievably accurate that I was surprised.
This book is all about growing up in north east as a gay kid in a dysfunctional family where all relationships and boundaries have broken down and fallen apart. The author's mother suffers from fits of schizophrenia and to certain extent is lunatic which his father is a reticent introvert recluse who has no real relationship with the family - the author even has a brother but he has his own world of music and stays away from the family. The author's mother is getting manipulated by a psychiatrist (Dr. Finch) who lives in an old Victorian home which is falling to pieces. This house kind of resembles Orwell's Animal Farm and the doctor's family with his wife Agnes daughters Natalie, Hope & adopted son Neil and so many other is quite a circus. There is a connection of life between Natalie and the author and that is the only normal relationship he has been able to cultivate so he tries to hold on to it. His relation with Neil is more sexual in nature and does not really add up to anything.
The whole situation is tragic but Augustine is able to present it in a human way with a touch of humor in every line - example when other mom's were eating carrot pieces thin as matchsticks my mom was eating matchsticks. I promise you will laugh out loud. This is a book to remember so please do not miss it