Magical Thinking : True Stories

Rating:
Summary: keep it coming
Review: every book by augusten burroughs gets better and better. on the surface the stories are tragic, but they are heartfelt, honest, and full of humor. certainly one of the top ten books of the year...just left me wanting more.

Rating:
Summary: Augusten Has Jumped The Shark
Review: He's run out of ideas folks. This is just a collection of self-absorbed observations about he world around him. He needs to stop writing for a while rather than push himself to deadlines that only result in this type of mush.

Rating:
Summary: Skip chapter 6...And Now A Word From Our Sponsor
Review: I bought this book at a used bookstore without knowing anything about Augusten Burroughs. The title caught my eye and I begin to read the first chapter. I enjoyed his writing style and decided to buy it. I was thoroughly enjoying the book until the 6th chapter. Each chapter is it's own separate story and are put in a seemingly random order so skipping a chapter will not hurt anything, which is why I am suggesting to skip the 6th one. Had this chapter not been in there I probably would have given the book 5 stars. As it is, it was hard for me to even give it 3. For the one paragraph in chapter six it deserves no stars. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of it, some made me laugh out loud and some parts made me upset, but I was completely outraged by what I read in that chapter to the point I had difficulty finishing the book. I continued on in the hopes some evil misfortune would befall him and judging by his brief references to his childhood I guess some evil already did befall him, but I wanted more evil after what he wrote. I am now going to quote directly from the chapter, but if you have any intention of reading this book please skip this part of the review, skip chapter six and come back to it.

"Women just smirk at baldness, as if it's cute. How adorable would they find it if they began to lose their breasts in their late twenties? If both t**s just shrunk up-unevenly I might add-and eventually turned into wine-cork nubs...As far as I am concerned, baldness is the male breast cancer, only much worse, because almost everyone gets it. True, it's not life-threatening. Just social-life threatening. But in New York City, there is no difference." I can't believe someone would even compare something like baldness to a cancer of any type. Granted I am probably more sensitive to this subject, since I do research in a cancer hospital on breast cancer and am a woman. But still!! Part of me wants to get his other memoirs so I can relish in his horrible childhood. But then again, I don't want to contribute any more money to this man. Maybe he can will the books to appear upon my doorstep.

Rating:
Summary: Enough Already!!
Review: I have to put my foot down. After David Sedaris, Michael Thomas Ford, Augusten Burroughs, et.al., I simply cannot take one more collection of self-depracating, pseudo-witty, sometimes-funny, neurotically inspired musings.

Burroughs has fallen into the same snare as his peers: he has become redundant and mundane. His strongest traits have become, after multiple publications, his biggest weaknesses.

These essays read like transcripts of my daily telephone conversations with my best friends: intriguing for the moment, at times entertaining but overall pointless, and instantly forgettable.

I can't do this genre anymore. I no longer care about the weird psychiatrists, the predictably bizarre first-dates, the dreadfully comic trips home to dysfunctional families, the compulsive addictions, and/or especially the wonderful new boyfriends. After volumes of this kind of stuff over the past decade, it's occurred to me that I'm spending upwards of $15 a pop to read snippets and reflections of my own urban gay American life, when I could just be keeping and re-reading a journal for free.

"Magical Thinking" is no exception to everything else Burroughs (et. al.) have done (hence the 3-stars). It's no better or worse than the rest, just painfully the same . . . again. The magic is over.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: I loved the stories in Magical Thinking. Burroughs is right up there with David Sedaris - a master of description and humor.

Rating:
Summary: Another winner from Augusten!
Review: I've read "Running with Scissors" and "Dry" and could really relate to them both. (My childhood and battles with addiction weren't THAT bizarre, but I could still relate.) I really enjoyed these anecdotes from his pre- and post-"Dry" years, and I especially enjoyed reading about his relationship with Dennis. That he could get through all the garbage he's gone through and find love is a miracle, indeed. I wish them all the best! Keep those books coming!

Rating:
Summary: read the others first
Review: It's very easy to get caught up in the Augusten Mania, but to get the most from this book, it's best to attain background by reading his first two memoirs. Magical Thinking is VERY amusing, and I was about to loan it to my mom, but that was before I knew how integral reading Running with Scissors & Dry is in understanding the complexities of his relationships and the basic timeline of the book.

Rating:
Summary: OK.
Review: Magical Thinking has some amusing anecdotes and a sharp attention to detail told in an (at times) engaging voice. It's a little heavy on the homosexual relationship whimsy a la "Ooh my new boyfriend is just soooo understanding and I just loooove all his little quirks because he understands mine." The story about his cleaning lady is one of the best. I give the book one extra star for the author's one line jab at Tuesday's With Morrie. This is the first book I've read by this author and it's tough not to make a Sedaris comparision. All in all an alright book.

Rating:
Summary: Fair enough
Review: Magical Thinking is a reasonably good book, but (without having read Running with Scissors) it appears to me that Mr. Burroughs is a paler, and less amusing, pretender to the throne of David Sedaris.

Rating:
Summary: wow. this is what you call good writing?
Review: wow. after reading all the positively GUSHING reviews of Magical Thinking, i rushed out to borrow my friend's copy. SOOO glad i didn't waste money on it! Second rate Sedaris indeed, without the the wit, humor or ability to craft a sentence. so where are all these FANTABULOUS REVIEWS COMING FROM? i don't know... maybe AB himself? (he was in advertising, afterall). especially the reviews where he compares himself to Dave Eggers and Jeffrey Eugenides. ha! who are you fooling? save your money folks. read a real author.