Most of this book’s chapters were laugh-out-loud hilarious. While I truly enjoyed the majority of the book, my enthusiasm was dampened a bit by the author’s stories about his experiences buying dogs.

“Kitty, Kitty,” chronicles the author’s short-lived ownership of a Wheaten terrier puppy named, well, KittyKitty. Burroughs impulsively buys the dog at a time when his life is in shambles and he is in no place to take on the responsibility of a pet. He would have had an excuse, I suppose, if he were totally ignorant of the sad reality behind pet store dogs, but no, he’s more than well-informed:

I did know that you’re never supposed to buy a puppy from a pet store. And the reason is that you support the puppy mill industry. A puppy mill is a disreputable breeder who churns out puppies the way Nabisco churns out Oreos. Often the dogs are inbred and have health problems. But all of this knowledge evaporated once I went inside the pet store and saw the adorable puppies.

He continues:

A rational person would have seen the filthy cages where the dogs were kept and known better than to slap down his credit card and take one home. But I saw the filthy cages and thought, I must save one.

I found myself cursing the puppy mill industry who play upon the dogs’ plight as a selling point and use their suffering to appeal to sympathetic shoppers. The author doesn’t get off the hook, either, though: “Saving” a pet store puppy by buying him is a pointless endeavor, as he’ll only be replaced by another suffering puppy, and so on as long as the cash register keeps ringing. And he knows that. That’s the maddening part.

KittyKitty turns out to be too overwhelming for Augusten (that’s another feature of irresponsible pet shops: they don’t assess a customer’s ability to care for an animal, only pay for him). With a heavy heart, the author takes him to an animal shelter. Happily for KittyKitty, he is adopted into a much more stable home belonging to a shelter employee. However, I found myself mourning for KittyKitty’s parents, still trapped at the puppy mill.

One would think after this disastrous experience, Burroughs would swear off buying dogs. But no! The chapter titled “The Sacred Cow” has he and his partner purchasing a tiny French bulldog puppy at another pet store. And while “Cow’s” life is much more secure than KittyKitty’s, once again, the miserable cycle of puppy mill breeding continues. Come on, Augusten. You have a big heart. If you really want to “save” a dog, you need to head down to your animal shelter.

First, let me start off by saying that this is one of the first short story anthologies I have read. It was a different experience for me, not having a continuing story waiting for me to get back to it impatiently. Instead, I would read a story and move on with my day - it was a cool in between book. I could easily squeeze it between classes and appointments without really loosing my place. The stories were interesting and engaging; I liked his voice and he was easy to like. Some of the stories were funny, some were sad, but many just were there. The only reason I only gave 3 stars was because although I liked it, it was not one of my favorites. I would absolutely recommend this book to others and I will be reading more of Augusten Burroughs' books.

I actually finished this book a year ago. It was typical Augusten Burroughs in his comic delivery of rather unfortunate life events. However, the material covered isn't nearly as dark and haunting as some of his other memoirs (like Running with Scissors or Dry). These events are definitely more relatable activities to people who have never lived through alcoholism or a dysfunctional family. The tales span a wide range of vanilla-life adventures, such as house training a dog or traveling with a partner in Europe - but with a classic Burroughs edge.
I assure you, this is not at all a boring book. He finds the humor in the struggles of daily life, just like he did in all of his previous books.

Another great book from one of my favorite authors. I bought this for my dad as well. He also loved it.

Favorite quotes:
Although my parents never attended church or mentioned Jesus except when they screamed at each other—and then they used his full name, 'Jesus Fucking Christ'.

I am prone to envy. It is one of my three default emotions, the others being greed and rage. I have also experienced compassion and generosity, but only fleetingly and usually while drunk, so I have little memory.

The thing is, I worship John Updike...I would drink his bathwater.

He tossed his head slightly, in such a way as to cause his hair to sweep back. This made me feel actual pain, so extreme was my hair envy.

Now maybe I'm just ultrajudgmental, but I really feel that only two groups of people have any business collecting dolls: little girls and grown women who lost all their children in fiery car accidents. Other than these two exceptions, doll collecting is just plain creepy.

For someone like me, somebody who has large vacant holes where character should be...

Touring a client's factory was akin to spending the afternoon with the parents of the world's ugliest baby and being forced to endure eight hours of home movies.

I remained quiet for a moment because i could not risk opening my mouth and having 'Now listen here you stupid motherfucker' come out.

There's probably not a connection, but when I started drinking again, my apartment wandered back into squalor.

I, with my salad bar of insecurities...

Now, I found myself having third, fourth, fifth dates with people i didn't care for. Even people that i loathed and wished would get caught in a grinding, malfunctioning escalator.

There is a little German in me, therefore I don't do cuddly.

Be excited when you encounter cosmetic surgery mistakes. Be excited when a birth defects marathon runs on The Discovery Channel. But don't be excited because you had some coffee.

When you insult the Midwest—land of corndogs, casseroles, and all my favorite packaged food products—you insult me.

Give me down. And give me polaroids of the fifty geese that had to die in the process.

There was smooth, creamy dog shit everywhere, blended into the cedar chips like some kind of awful urban casserole.

...whose name had simply bounced off my forehead.

She was incredibly funny, but in a way that made you say, 'That's horrible,' before you laughed until you accidentally farted.

As with most things from childhood, I eventually outgrew my love for McDonald's and my desire to be an Afro-American. I adjusted to my own life as a standard-issue white male alcoholic.

But perhaps my gay gene, the gene responsible for my desire to own platform shoes at an early age, somehow mutated because of my mother's heavy hairspray use.

If a green body-builder with acromegaly or a geriatric dwarf who lived in a hollow tree didn't sing, dance, or otherwise celebrate the product, I didn't want it on my plate.

Any of us would happily have licked the inside of a toilet rather than attend music class.

Some stories in this are a bit more entertaining than others, with certain stories running far too long and getting a bit hard to believe or dramatic, namely the saga of his tooth and some of the bits about his mother. I really liked "Julia's Child" as well as the stories about The Cow. I am not sure if I like him reading the audio or not, as he sometimes has a way of sounding like he is reading aloud to toddlers and I am not sure it really works. I continue to be interested in reading more by him, though.

I liked this book so much more than Running with Scissors. There were only one or two vulgar chapters, but they were only mildly vulgar and utterly hilarious. This book has a lot of the grown-up Augusten Burroughs. We see him eating McDonalds, smoking cigarettes, drinking Scotch (a lot of Scotch), and overall being a wonderfully over analytical, painfully self aware adult. His anxiety ridden moments are a source of much hilarity. The further out there he goes, the funnier it gets. And his powerful intellect takes him WAY out there. I see now why he was named one of the funniest people in the inside cover of Running with Scissors. Too bad they didn't print that accolade inside his truly humorous book.

This book solidified me as a fan. I admit the first two or three stories had me scratching my head, as in, why are you telling us this? The first few are really throw aways. However, once you get further in, the stories become more engaging. To me, unlike David Sedaris who is consistently funny/ entertaining, Augusten is hit or miss. When he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad he is, well, not quite horrible, but you get the idea. The interesting contrast between these two writers (who are hands down my favorites) is that Sedaris had a pretty cookie-cutter life growing up, while Burroughs' childhood was a walking nightmare. Therefore, I have a little more patience and compassion for him and his writing. I am amazed that he lived through what he did without killing himself or anyone else for that matter. And with a great sense of humor and self. As long as he is writing, I will keep reading.

So I've decided I really like Augusten Burroughs. Running with Scissors is honestly one of the best books I read last year, and his ability to write both hilarious and heartbreaking stories (sometimes at the same time) is an impressive feat. He has a rare gift of being able to diversify the way he writes.

That being said, Possible Side Effects left a lot to be desired. Don't get me wrong; it fulfilled and even surpassed many of my expectations--I laughed so hard I cried because of some of the essays, and I felt like I wanted to cry at others. Truly, all of the stories were really enjoyable reads, and it's clear that Burroughs has one of the most fucked-up (yet also interesting) lives of any modern writer.

And yet, with almost all of his essays, he either did too much with the essays or too little. There were many essays where he starts about three different plot lines in the story and only wraps up one. There are others where you're aching for more narrative and he leaves you with too little. There are some essays that serve really no purpose other than to be funny, and those were the ones that I found to be the least funny (at least out of the ones that were MEANT to be funny). Also, and this has more to do with me as an aspiring memoirist than it does anything else, but it bothered me that there was no narrative nor thematic thread in this book. It was just an ersatz collection of unrelated stories, and that frankly made it seem sloppy. The book didn't even go chronologically, which, again, is more of a nit-picky thing for me than anything else.

But in all honesty, it is a really great book. It's a good example of how a great writer can switch styles and moods in his writings, and most of the essays are extremely enjoyable and/or moving. But if you haven't read anything by Augusten Burroughs before, I definitely recommend starting with Running with Scissors.

This collection of stories is as all over the place and over the top as I imagine Augusten to be.

Okay, probably not fair that I say I read this book - I listened to it and here's a rule: authors - never, ever read your own work. I knew it before I put it in my CD player when it said "read by the author" - I am enjoying another of his books (in writing) and have my own voice for him in my head. Not saying my voice is better (well it is) but I don't want to be close to the author - I need a layer in between. The book started out funny and I have no idea what it's about - is it a memoir? But the whole thing about wanting to live in London turned me off. Not that London isn't great - just that I recently moved to Europe and back (in less than 6 months) and let's just say it's influenced my current outlook on moving. Moving's not a bad thing, but I had to stop listening to this book. Really good writing but nothing I can stomach right now. I'll enjoy his other book for now.

I didn't like this at all. Didn't even read the whole thing..just kept reading chapters in hopes that one would actually be funny but no luck so it's going back to the library.

Possible Side Effects is, perhaps, Augusten Burroughs at his best. The audio book is perfect for a long car ride, especially if you want to end your trip laughing!

This is another memoir, told in short story segments, and ranges from his early life to the near present (2006 or thereabouts.) While this book is as funny as his previous ones, there are times when a more vulnerable Burroughs appears - and the reader may suspect that he is a far more genuinely likeable person than the smart aleck self he usually presents. Perhaps growing older and finding himself in a stable relationship has been good for him! And his readers can only be happy for him. But they should not worry that he has become saccharine - fat chance! No, Burroughs is the kind of funny guy who simply can't help himself; he finds - and shares - the humor in everything, and most cuttingly, in himself.