Rating: 
Summary: Liza Minelli Had a More Normal Upbringing
Review: I just finished "Running With Scissors", and am now obsessed with casting the movie version. If only Crispin Glover were 20 years younger...
"Scissors" is the most engrossing read I've had this year, but the range of my reactions is difficult to describe. Primary among them was laughing until my sides hurt -- out loud, in public, on many occasions -- often accompanied/followed by a vaguely guilty, "What the hell am I laughing at?" sort of horror. I found the experience much like watching a Todd Solondz movie (the perfect choice, by the way, to DIRECT the movie version), with emotions intensified by the fact that this is NON-fiction. The author's voice in recounting his surreally abyssmal childhood also reminded me of how my late father (who was a combat Marine in the South Pacific during WW II) spoke with a mixture of regret and pride about what a character-building experience it was for him to watch his friends get their heads blown off.
I imagine "Running With Scissors" must have been both painful and enormously cathartic to write. Bravo, Augusten; I look forward to your next literary effort.
Rating:
Summary: I agree with the Washington Post -- it is spectacular!
Review: rarely is a book this funny awarded the critical acclaim of a more demure author who treads the well-worn path of literature. Burroughs is strikingly original, yet adds a patina of poignancy and tenderness to his work that amazes as well as delights. from the very first story "Something Isn't Right," he hooks you with his storytelling ability and attention to detail. His is the most compelling memoir I've read in years. The critics agree: RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is a masterpiece, and a darkly comic coup. Most highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: You think your family is dysfunctional???!!!
Review: One of the most amazing reads ever. The books is humorous, witty, depressing, painful and hopeful all wrapped into one. You can't help but feel empathy (not pity) for the author and his unconventional, borderline totally messed up, upbringing. But the author has a way of resolving the story by giving you (and himself) the upmost hope. I really could not put this book down, wanting with the upmost anticipation to see what was around the corner.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...
Review: I approached Running With Scissors with excitement. The David Sedaris comparisons convinced me to try it, and, I'm afraid, may have eventually caused me to dsilike it.It is true that Augusten Burroughs had a bizarre and difficult childhood. I wil not deny that the stories he tells about growing up gay in a cult-like atmosphere are both harrowing and, at times, amusing. What I could not bear, however, was the overall tone of Burroughs' memoir. Running With Scissors, to me, seemed to be a somewhat derivative attempt to write like Sedaris and his ilk that has not entirely succeeded. Where Burroughs' peers write in a light and self-effacing way, his prose is self-aggrandizing and overly self-conscious. The story is interesting, but the pretension in the voice is too much to bear.
Rating:
Summary: And you thought your childhood was scarring...
Review: Absolutley rapt with perverse curiousity, I couldn't put down this book. It was recommended to me as something "hilarious" that I had to read. And while I wouldn't go that far, I would say that it is witty, intelligent and deeply tragic. But unlike other "feel sorry for me" stories of childhood, this one takes a absolutely horrible situation and gives it depth and charm. It is a wonder that the author survied his own parents' dark and manic behaviour, let alone that of his adopted family, led by his mother's psychiatrist. Its one of those great fiction/non-fiction books that come along so rarely.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my God, my evil twin....
Review: I'm not much of a reader, but David Sedaris-style books make it easy. This one is definitely a winner. Augusten completely recaptures the thoughts and perceptions of his ultra-[messed]-up childhood, with a dry and matter-of-fact-funny spin. I thought *I* was the only kid who ever wished someone would realize that he was the lost Brady. If you want a fun and kooky book, buy it -- you can't go wrong!
Rating: 
Summary: A true story with lies? You decide.
Review: Growing up gay always has its challenges, and Burroughs definitely had his. His parents divorced because of his father's alcoholism and his mother's burgeoning madness. Believing it best for her son, his mother had her therapist assigned his legal guardian. And then Augusten finds that Dr Finch's family could be considered even more screwed up than his own family. His life becomes a madcap, sometimes surreal adventure where the reader sometimes wants to doubt the reality of the events, but nonetheless the reader just can't look away. Finch's other adopted son Neil becomes Augusten's first lover, even though Neil is over twice the boy's age, and then even that relationship is twisted. The story is dark and disturbing like the books by JT LeRoy or Scott Heim, but with a sense of bizarre humor like that of Edward Gorey. And sometimes it reminded me of "Ghost Dance" by Carole Maso, too. Overall this is a fascinating and horrific and funny memoir of a boy growing up with a bizarre and outrageous group of people and turning out to be oddly normal.
Rating:
Summary: And you thought your family was crazy . . .
Review: This remarkable memoir does more than keep you moving ahead, wondering how a family could derail itself in such an incendiary fashion. It does what all visionary art does -- takes reality and turns it into something resonant. No doubt about it, Burroughs is funny -- think David Sedaris with a soul and different set of obsessions/compulsions. But more importantly, he captures the story of his terrible childhood without an ounce of self-pity. A truly fascinating, disturbing book. Expect great things from this writer . . .
Rating:
Summary: I thought my childhood was weird!
Review: Don't let the subject matter fool you. This book is quite possibly the funniest I have read. Anyone who can make me laugh at pedophiles, child abuse, mental institutions, dead cats, out of season Christmas trees, and raw hot dogs is doing something right. Augusten Burroughs is surely on his way to the top of the list of America's new off-beat authors.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant.
Review: ...and oh so funny.
This is one of those memoirs that compels you to read "just one more chapter" until you find you've finished the entire book while the work you meant to do piles up, suddenly unimportant. I have not laughed this hard since I read Naked by David Sedaris. The details alone catapult one back into the sordid seventies and eighties, while the characters leap off the page in all their gruesomely hilarious glory. I don't think I've ever read anything like this - Burroughs is a true original, and deftly avoids sentimentality or the urge to make his characters sympathetic. It's a wonderful book. I cannot wait to see what this young genius thinks of next. Highly recommended, and hugely entertaining.
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