And I thought I had a dysfunctional family! I laughed, I had wtf moments, and fuck this is hard to read moments but I highly recommend this memoir

3 stars - It was good.

So I learned that I'm not the only person with a crazy family. Maybe mine is even crazy-lite.
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Favorite Quote: My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God' sort of way.

First Sentence: My mother is standing in front of the bathroom mirror smelling polished and ready; like Jean Naté, Dippity Do and the waxy sweetness of lipstick.

What a disturbing and hate-filled story.

Almost every part is filled with some bizarre event in Burrough's childhood from a similarly bizarre set of characters. I had my doubts about their truthfulness, but I've seen news and heard stories at pretty much the same level (and even worse) as in this book, so I cannot also entirely dismiss it. But what of the story itself? There is nothing funny about it at all. I didn't laugh one bit although it is marketed as a "darkly humorous memoir". It is just depressing. You can feel the still palpable hatred and disgust the author had, perhaps, harbored throughout the years after the story took place. Hopefully, it must have been a therapeutic experience for Burroughs to write about his childhood. However, the problem was that's all this book is all about: an outlet for Burroughs to feel better, and maybe earn money along with it. I cannot find any substance in what he is trying to tell his readers. Everything revolves around every weird happening he had with this dysfunctional family. There was no significant realization he made in his story. It is pure ranting, screaming of look how horrible my childhood is, nothing could possible compare! It is self-indulgent and self-important.

But this is his memoir after all, right? If all events in this book are actually true as he claims. But this is actually a good example of how to not write your memoir. He got all these bizarre events to happen to him and okay, put that in your story, but with only that? Your story becomes devoid of meaning. It just numbs whoever reads it (if they even read the rest of it). The thing is, Burroughs did not dig deeper into why and how such a thing could have happened to someone like him. He failed to connect vital points of his story to some damn bigger picture or whatnot. You know, it just lacks...meaning. Some people had bad childhood experiences (perhaps even worse than you, dear author) and when they decide to write about it, it seemed equally depressing but somehow also alive. Running with Scissors is just dead. The characters are all flat, even the author himself. If they are too weird, search for something to balance it out. Don't just put every weird thing that happened to you on paper and that's that. In journalism, this is just pure sensationalism. You need to have something more substantial, a more profound reflection than just describing your fucked-up life.

In the end, I took nothing from the story. It's numbing. Yes, it's sometimes entertaining. But mostly, I felt like a reluctant audience forced to witness something I'm not really sure I want to see. I still have no idea on what Burroughs is trying to convey by telling us this story. Perhaps, he wanted to say it's okay to be different, or maybe, it's not okay to be different but who cares, fuck everyone else. I don't know. There was no closure in it, even years after it happened. It was just a disaster.

A memoir about a boy who is palmed off to his mother’s quirky psychiatrist.

The memoir covers some big topics including molestation, mental illness and a lack of protective parents/adults.

Each name of the chapter was sort of humourous or at least catchy but in no way was the book funny.

Most characters were unlikeable except Agnes who seems to be the most hard done by for no conceivable reason. I didn’t mind that they were all such awful people considering they were mostly living in the household of a lunatic psychiatrist. It was as though I was reading about people from the lowest socio-economic demographic which excuses some of their peculiar behavior.

I believe the molestation parts of the story however there is something that doesn’t ring true as to the authenticity of many of the other stories. Hopefully this sense of unbelievability is an embellishment of his story or that of others than just made up. So should this be a memoir or a novel? I don’t know.

I would not recommend this book.

Passare dalla famiglia perfetta a quella completamente sballata è semplice: pompatevi di steroidi, fatevi di allucinogeni e vi ritroverete catapultati nell'assurdità e nel livello di follia della casa in cui cresce il protagonista.
Vivere in una gabbia di matti cambia per sempre il tuo stile di vita ed i tuoi atteggiamenti nei confronti di chi ti sta intorno oppure in qualche modo si riesce a riprendere la diritta via che era smarrita?

I'm more than halfway through this, and I find myself liking it and hating it at the same time. Like, it's really interesting and funny and horrifying, and I want to be reading it, but as I'm reading it I'm mad at it for being such a ripoff of David Sedaris. What, can only gay men with screwed up childhoods write memoirs now? And even though it is funny and interesting, I definitely don't think he's on the same level as Sedaris -- this book isn't nearly as funny or poignant. And like I said, it feels kind of copycat (the way he plays off his gayness is just SO SIMILAR), with the notable difference that Burroughs isn't nearly as likable as Sedaris. While Sedaris jokes but then seems to use his essays as a genuine, loving tribute to the (admittedly messed up) people in life, Burroughs just comes across as selfish and self-centered, at times mocking his family and friends pretty mercilessly (whereas Sedaris is much more likely to mock himself). I'll take self-deprecating over arrogant any day. But still, annoyingly, I am enjoying this book. The chapter with the doctor and the poop (don't want to give too much away) particularly cracked me up.

ETA: After finishing this, my opinion didn't change much. It was an easy read, and I enjoyed it, but I also kind of hated that I enjoyed it. I think the problem is that this book is pure fluff, but Burroughs tries to play it off as something deeper than that. It's not. The only emotion this book really engaged was anger at how stupid and crazy and self-centered all the people in it are. I took nothing away from it. Seriously, go read David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell instead.

I really enjoyed this book. A young Augusten is thrust into the middle of his parents divorce he has to deal with his father's suppressed and detached anger and his mother's many manic episodes. Which brings him to live with his mother's psychiatrist's family. The Finch family are an incredibly odd bunch. Dysfunctional in all the best kind of ways. The situations almost border on the ridiculous which makes this a fun memoir. It seems the crazier the better and many situations depicted here begs disbelief but it's such an inclusive family that you can't bring yourself to judge these people...well ok just abit. How Augusten copes and deals with the pains of growing up in a world he doesn't feel he completely belongs in, he finds himself enveloped by a strange assortment of characters that seem to make him appear more "normal" they take him in and completely accept him and help him discover himself in a humorous open and honest way. Some parts I hope for the sake of decency & morality are exaggerated (Bookman!!??) I couldn't help but picture the movie characters as the real life characters in the book so that kind of distracted me from fully immersing myself in this. But nevertheless I will read more of his books as it was all so weird and whacky, and I kinda dig that.

At the time, the author’s family life seemed outrageous. Now, so many bizarre memoirs have come out that the home life described in Running with Scissors seems nothing less than banal. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and its alcoholic sequel.

Alternatve Title: Stabbing Yourself with Scissors

I've always looked at this book, picked it up, and put it back down. I was wary because it seemed like something Sedaris would write, and I really hate Sedaris. Also, look at the cover. Always judge books by covers! It's in sepia-uh oh, you know it's a memoir. And he's got a box on his head-he must be crazy! Still, I'd heard people liked it, so when I came across it in my local used bookstore, I thought I'd give it a try.

I got through 20 pages. Maybe. First, I am so over "crazy troubled childhood" stories. Over. Done. Move on. Your early years sucked. Boo hoo. Not my problem. Second, I hate books that say "look at this event! That was really crazy! I mean I had some really wacky people around me! And then that one time we did something completely nonsensical-that was a hoot! Let's learn life lessons about it!"

So this book has the distinction of going on my shortlist of books I have never finished. I have not even the slightest desire to pick it up and try it again. Don't mention this book in my presence unless you're mocking it.

I won this copy of Running with Scissors in a Goodreads Giveaway. This is my fair and honest review!

2.5/5.0 Stars

Okay I’ve procrastinated long enough on this one. I really, really wanted to love this book but, despite all the rave reviews and critical acclaim, I just didn’t feel it. Please don’t hate me all you Augusten Burroughs fans out there. This book confused the heck out of me and I simply could not get past the pedophilia.

Confused? You bet! This is a memoir about some pretty serious and disturbing stuff … dysfunctional family headed up by a father who is an alcoholic university mathematics professor and a severely mentally ill mother aspiring to be a famous poet. Norman and Deidre loathed each other! Augusten’s brother fled the parental battlefield when he was just sixteen while seven year old Augusten remained with his parents in Leverett, MA until their eventual divorce four years later after years of marital counseling with three different psychiatrists.

It’s after the divorce that the true craziness sets in. Deidre sees Dr. Finch for hours each day to deal with her mental illness and Augusten spends lots of time at Dr. Finch’s home on 67 Perry Street in Northampton. The home is a dump; some of Finch’s patients live in the home along with the doctor’s children and eventually Augusten takes up permanent residence on Perry Street when Deidre makes Finch Augusten’s legal guardian! Then there’s the pedophilia where thirteen year old Augusten has oral and anal sex with thirty-three year old Neil Bookman. And the adults tacitly condoned this activity! There is no way I’d describe this as “wickedly, ridiculously funny” as noted by the Boston Herald. Far from it!

Sounds gross right? Therein lies the nature of my confusion. This is pretty rough stuff but it’s told in a very comical, almost satirical manner that doesn’t feel like a memoir at all. It felt so unbelievable that I mistook it for a work of fiction much of the time. “This can’t be real,” I thought over and over as I read the tale. I took to Google to cull some background color and found lots of information about the film based on this book – black comedy, semi-autobiographical account, and emotionally edgy were some of the movie descriptors. I read other accounts of folks involved with the real life Dr. Finch (Doctor Rodolph Turcotte) and his unorthodox psychiatric practices (which by today’s standards would be completely illegal and unethical) and they had a very different view of events. I’m not disputing the story, only trying to explain how confused and disturbing I found this story to be. Perhaps Burroughs’s pain was so great he had to take a comedic tack because the reality of the situation was just too much to bear.

Anyway, here is a different perspective of the events of the Turcotte home in the early 1970’s
http://www.litkicks.com/Turcottes

I can confirm that all the places in the story are very real. I went to school at UMASS-Amherst and currently live just twenty-one miles south of Northampton, MA. I remember the All Star Market, Ann August, the Hampshire Mall and Chess King … oh my goodness Chess King was so ahead of its time! Northampton is certainly a place very conducive to this type of zaniness; especially back in the “I’m OK, You’re OK” heydays of the 1970s.

To the kind folks at Goodreads – thank you for the book!
To the folks thinking about reading this one - WARNING: This is NOT a comedy!

1/2 star. I gave Burroughs the benefit of the douht, kept reading, kept reading. I can't take the bleakness and anger and the craziness of the memior anymore. Enough is enough.
Good thing Burroughs is in recovery. At some point, he will be writing more positive things to read.

In the aptly titled first of his memoir trilogy, Augusten Burroughs takes the reader down the rabbit hole of his youth. Set in rural Massachusetts in the 1970s, young Burroughs struggles with the deterioration of his parents' marriage and the larger familial dysfunction this invites. He must turn inwards and master the art of self-discovery in order to fill his days, which he does while honing his own personal style and sense of fashion. As these quirks emerge in the early chapters, Burroughs seeks not to hide them from the reader, but places them on a pedestal, as if to air everything out, in a break from the traditional memoir, chock full of explanations for less than perfect behaviour. When Burroughs accompanies his parents to their psychiatrist, Dr. Finch, a bond is formed, which is a platform for an entirely new avenue of adventures in the teenager's life. After his parents divorce, Burroughs is shipped off to live with Dr. Finch and his less than traditional family, a major turning point in his life. This presents new hurdles and added levels of oddity for the young and impressionable Augusten. With little formal education and no adult impetus to attend school, Burroughs becomes a creature of his surroundings and succumbs to some of the outlandish happenings within the Finch household, from "Bible-dips" to non-sanctioned home renovations, through to toilet bowl life interpretations . Left there to integrate and eventually becoming legal enveloped into the family, Burroughs must struggle to find himself again, while wrestling with the behaviours of those around him. Powerful in its delivery with a sense of dry wit that will keep the reader from lamenting the situation too forcefully, Burroughs begins spinning the complex narrative of his life and the situations that shaped him in adulthood.

Being used to the more formal memoir reading in the past, I struggled in the early chapters to grasp the Burroughs narrative. Fragmented and full of editorializing, I asked myself if this was a story or a smattering of ideas sewn together with the odd piece of properly-placed punctuation. However, after reorganizing my mind, I could better adapt to the writing style, a non-fiction Stephen King of sorts, allowing absorption of the book's crux. While it tells horror stories of what happened to a young boy who was shipped off when his mother felt he was too much of a burden for her fragile state of mine, Burroughs offers a softer side to these happenings in a collection of vignettes that create a patchwork quilt of a young life, one event building off another. The reader may cringe or even wonder if this is a piece of fiction, but when fully digested, this memoir can be appreciated as truth, told through the prism of a young boy's recollections. No fiction writer could come up with so many tales and place them at the feet of a single boy in such vivid fashion. Burroughs has the ability to pull the reader in a number of directions and leaves nothing as too personal or private. He fears no judgement and can sometimes indulge in self-mockery as he trots through the shards of his memory bank, laying the groundwork for the following two parts, sure to use this piece as a strong foundation. Not for the straight-laced memoir reader, but ideal for those who want to be shocked, surprised, and especially astounded. Burroughs knows how to sell himself, however the reader wants to interpret it.

A special thank you to Rae Eddy, who recommended I step well beyond my comfort level in trying this book. She sought to introduce me to not only a new author, but a new way of looking at life and enjoying it for all it has to offer. You may have created a new Augusten Burroughs fan with your gentle nudging. Keep it up for the long haul we have ahead of us!

Kudos, Mr. Burroughs for this wonderful first of three memoirs. I am eager to see how things develop in DRY, the next book on my list.

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