Running with Scissors was the first book I read by Augusten Burroughs and it's the only one I ever like. Most of his books strike me as self-indulgent whining. The general theme of each is that he's strange and therefore his life has been hard. It's everyone's fault but his own.

In Running with Scissors, Burroughs tells of his thoroughly bizarre childhood. His mother and father are both shown to be as strange as he is, but in this book he presents it as just the way things were. I never had the feeling he was trying to vilify anyone and it never seemed like he was fishing for sympathy. Things were even more insane while he lived with his mother's psychiatrist, to the point where one had to wonder is this was really what he lived through or if he was embellishing for entertainments sake.

The description of the book states that this book is an "account of an ordinary boy's survival." This is kind of misleading. Burroughs is no ordinary boy. As I mentioned above, he's strange. As a child he had an obsession with neatness that went beyond the norm. He had a fixation where he needed to boil and shine any change he came across. As his family life deteriorated and he became more and more immersed into the psychiatrists lifestyle, he became manipulative. He engaged in a public sexual relationship with a 33 year old man when he was 13. He then used this relationship as a way to control the man. While the relationship shouldn't have been accepted to begin with, his reaction to the situation was not ordinary. Instead of acting like someone being abused, he became the abuser. What should have left me cheering for his empowerment made me think he was on the path to becoming a sociopath.

The book is entertaining and well written. As a novel, I couldn't praise it more. As a memoir, I find it mean spirited. Living through the hell he experienced, one would expect him to be damaged. And as far as I can see, he is. Instead of getting over the past and moving on, he churns out book after book bashing everyone who's ever done him wrong, becoming famous in the process. One has to wonder about someone who wants to be known for having a horrendous past. I never want to say harsh things about an author personally, but as he is the subject of the memoir, I can't help discussing him personally. I'm never made it a secret that I'm not a fan of Augusten Burroughs. Which is why it kind of embarrasses me when I have to admit that I really enjoyed Running with Scissors. If you ever have any interest in reading one of Burrough's memoirs, this is the one to pick up.

I have to warm you that I am going to give a spoiler here, the spoiler I happened upon as I had just begun reading this book and was just hooked enough by the descriptive style of writing and interesting content that I wanted to continue regardless. However, the spoiler ultimately affected my experience of the book and may affect yours as well. So don't read this, unless you've already read the book.
The family that "Augusten Burroughs" focuses most of his memoir around are suing him. They say that some of the info is downright false (living outside for the summer of the yard sale) and some is vastly exaggerated and mean. They say that they still care for him, and suspect he is currently happy because he was fame-obsessed. They also say his name is Chris Robison.
I found myself reading the name "Chris" in my mind over the place of the haughty "Augusten" that he has dubbed himself, just to gain perspective.
This is like another adventure in James Frey land. How real is real enough?
That being said, it's a fun and enjoyable book, though how it was funny is a little beyond me. He doesn't remind me of David Sedaris at all (as the book jacket suggests) and I laughed out loud rarely and despite myself. I don't dislike it, I just don't love it. I will watch the movie, just to see. So I suppose it has hooked me in a way.

When I finished this, literally my thoughts were: "My childhood sure wasn't perfect but it made me grateful for what I had."

It's hard to believe that this book is a memoir. A lot of scenes made me question everyone's thinking and logic. For example: would a parent really approve of his 14-year old son's intimate relationship with a 33-year old man?! It's crazy! At first, I thought, "ok maybe I'm just not being open minded" but the entire book is really out of the ordinary and it made me question myself if maybe I'm the insane one.

Running With Scissors is Augusten Burroughs' memoir during his youth. It's literally about someone's childhood and it is so messed up. Every character (which are real people) aside from Augusten is insane —insanely funny at times, but if I were to meet these people in real life, I don't think I'd wanna be near them or be friends with any of them. These people are toxic and it stressed me a bit reading about their lifestyles.

Yes, there were funny moments in this book. I like how the humor was written off but towards the end, it made me feel sympathetic for Augusten's adolescent period because the things this book was humorous about were pretty dark and disturbing facts such as being mentally ill, pre-teens and teenagers having romantic affairs with older people, smoking, alcoholism and drug use of minors and etc.

I felt sorry that this was the people he grew up with and the environment he grew up in. I know there are a lot of things around the world way worse than the events that happened in this book but they are pretty messed up themselves and can give a permanent change in someone's way of thinking and way of life when he gets older. It could f*ck someone up.

It shows how the people you surround yourself with are great factors to how happy/depressing and successful/failure your life can be.

I thought I'd like this more than I actually do. It was intriguing and interesting but there are times when I didn't buy all the WTF moments.

In the end though, it's nice to know that Burroughs and other characters made a complete turnaround when they got older even though their upbringing wasn't the best.

The entire book was psychotic thirty year olds having sex with thirteen year olds that smoke, do drugs, and drink beer.

I couldn't get into this at all, I just couldn't connect with story line or relate to the characters.

One star.

This was one of the craziest autobiographies I have ever read. I have to say during the beginning I was kinda torn about reading it. I wasn't really into and I thought it was weird as hell. Me and my friend were reading it together so I decided I was going to stick it out and continue with it. I have to say later on thee stories kept getting crazier and crazier but by that point I was use to it so I didn't mind. I ended up really enjoying this book a lot. It did give me a lot of wtf is this even real but I took it. I can't wait to read more of the author's other books and see more of his wild stories.

This book was not at all what I was expecting. I probably should have read some reviews before starting, and maybe saved myself the intense discomfort that I felt the entire time I was reading it.

*Spoilers from this point onward*
I am usually really into kind of dark/tough to read memoirs. This one is definitely the exception. The graphic sexual assault descriptions were disturbing, and at no point did I feel that they were worked through/did I experience any sort of catharsis in the narrative. I understand that it’s a memoir, but for a book that’s referred to as hilarious, I feel like I’m definitely missing that element. I don’t know what I was expecting, considering multiple underage characters were in “relationships” with adults from early on in the book, but I didn’t anticipate the parents and other adults just accepting this and allowing it to happen.

Also - the random racial slurs thrown in for no apparent reason were unexpected and, frankly, disgusted me. I rarely feel this negatively towards books, but this is not one I would read again, or recommend to anyone.

Powerful and well written.
I felt a strong connection to Augusten. He explained how he felt in a way that made me feel the same. The writing itself was unique and compelling and I didn't want the book to end. For me, it was an amazing read.

Running with Scissors was, perhaps, one of the most delightful, shocking, humorous and well-written auto-biographies I ever have read! Without including spoilers, it is the story one man's journey into adulthood through a home that literally was more like an insane asylum. At times it was hard to believe that even half of his story was true and yet all of it was.

This book does not read like a normal auto-biography. If those are not "your thing" you still will enjoy it very much. It is an older book and the first of a trilogy. I heartily recommend it!!

5 Stars for Running With Scissors (audiobook) by Augusten Burroughs read by the author.

This is the most disturbing memoir I’ve read.

Easily one of my favourite books that I have recommended time and again to friends. This is such a bizarre memoir and coming of age story that draws you in from start to finish; it has humour, complex relationships, love, loss, adventure, and personal discovery.

The story follows Augusten’s journey through his younger teenage years, his close and distant relationships and his experiences with his useless father, his experimental mother, and quirky psychiatrist. It appears that Augusten is surrounded by people who need therapy more than he does. A great read!

I'm surprised that this is considered a classic of transgressive literature, because while it certainly works with rather disturbing subject matters, it's written highly conventionally and does not aim to aesthetically mirror extreme feelings and scenes - it does inform, but not offend the reader (which, in transgressive lit, is a bad thing, if you ask me). Burroughs tells the story of his dysfunctional family, with an alcoholic and abusive father and a mentally ill mother with delusions of grandeur who, when she is finally unable to take care of young Augusten, lets him live with her psychiatrist. In the filthy, cockraoch-infested mansion, he is left to his own devices with the psychiatrist's biological and adopted children, participating in drug abuse, delinquency, and, worst of all, entering a sexual "relationship" with the 33-year-old adoptive son (a.k.a. he is raped with the knowledge of everyone around him, because he is a 13-year-old minor who can't consent).

Still largely marketed as a memoir, the book resulted in a law suit by people allegedly portrayed in the text, which mainly highlighted the names of the actual people behind the characters - very, very smart (NOT). On the other hand, if it was true that Burroughs' book is largely made up and he threw all those people under the bus for fame (as Vanity Fair reports), that's pathetic and immoral - and frankly, many, many passages read as if they were cutsied up and polished to hit sensibilities between the whimsical and the shocking. But who knows.

Be it as it may, from a literary standpoint, the book is a missed chance, because it deals with neglect, mental illness, drugs, and sexual abuse and clearly wants to be extreme literature, but the storytelling remains wordy and rambling, conservative and tame. Although the plot is full-on crazy and can be told in fast pace (whch predisposed it to be turned into a Hollywood movie), the written text does not manage to keep the reader's attention in the long run.

So all in all, a mixed bag, and certainly no transgressive literature.