Running with Scissors: A Memoir

The reviews of this book piqued my interest and curiosity but scared me so much that I didn't know just how I would react to this story of a bizarre childhood. Well! I don't feel sullied by the experience and I swallowed this book whole (read it in one session of six and a half hours with a dinner break--no, I didn't read it while eating). Burroughs is a masterful storyteller and I believed his story. As so many others have said, "Most of this stuff was just too weird to have been made up." Truth is stranger than fiction and this is certainly the case here. If you are turned off by explicit sex, foul language, and bathroom hijinks, don't read it. If you sincerely want to know how a young impressionable boy survived living with two dysfunctional families, coming out of it sane and productive with a great sense of humor and edgy style of writing, this is for you! I'm not a jaded teen or 20-something--I'm a 64-year-old woman, not naive, but feel that I have been somewhat sheltered and I don't like Jerry Springer! But this book just grabs you and holds onto you--it's so suspenseful--once I started it I pretty much knew that I was in it for the long haul. I like Burroughs. The other characters aren't as likeable. But some are laugh-out-loud funny. Both his real mom and his "surrogate" mom made me laugh. Burroughs knows for sure by the time he is thirteen that he is gay, he has no parental love that he can count on, and is then abandoned by his alcoholic father and mentally-ill mother and forced to live with a cast of characters crazier than the ones in a Dickens novel. I was disturbed, I laughed, and I found my eyes tearing although I didn't actually have a cry. They were tearing from laughter and from empathy for Burroughs who is just so real. He went into that crazy house an innocent, neat-freak boy and ended up adapting somewhat to a bizarre world. If you have a strong stomach and a curious mind, read his story--he's such an amazing and believable survivor. Now I have to add some afterthoughts to my review of his mother's book. I believe that so often children's memories are the most trustworthy. I can remember dialogue from my childhood--word for word--just like Burroughs can. A parent who is doing the juggling act of raising children along with emotional and physical abuse and mental breakdowns is not going to be a reliable narrator. I send my best wishes to Burroughs who lived to tell his tale and I thank him for a roller-coaster ride of a book.

I know I am weird with my ratings, but 3 stars is to me just fair, while 4 is pretty good, and 5 is amazing. I felt this book fell a little short of pretty good (but I went ahead with 4 stars), yet I still really enjoyed it, and it really haunted me, and that counts for a lot. I'm sure a lot of people know what the book's about, so here's just a simple recap: Burroughs' book takes place mainly during the midst of his most disturbed years, starting at age 12, and focuses heavily on his teen years spent among the psychotic and the supposed healers of the psychotic. His father is a bloodless, emotionless stranger, his mother a wanna-be Anne Sexton poetess, dealing with her own psychosis. She's obsessed with her eccentric (I'm being kind here) psychiatrist, Dr. Finch, who looks like Santa Claus , and who also eventually adopts her son when he's about 13. Burroughs' upbringing in the Finch household is strange, to say the least. The other kids, adopted or biological, are all raised with that sort of hippie, experimental, Primal Scream kind of therapy way, where they are 'free' of obligation, encouraged to express their anger all too freely, not go to school, sleep with whoever, and yet still are extremely troubled since they're offered no discipline or guidance. And there's a whole lot more to it, but this is kind of the bare bones. The result is a regular circus, honest-to-goodness freak show of a book/memoir. Is it real? Did Burroughs make it up? I don't know. Some of the stuff was pretty over the top, to say the least. it was fun to read, but also extremely disturbing, and very, very sad. Burroughs does sometimes truly remind me of Sedaris (who I love) in with his self-depreciating tone and wit, managing to sound very organic and modest sometimes, when he's not noticing himself too much. But in a way, the form of his writing reflects the content, or, in this case, the discontent of a teenager with a certain callousness, being forced to adapt to a really freakish envirnoment. Sometimes his narrative works, sometimes it doesn't. There are times when Burroughs' narrative is smooth, funny, sad, moving along with half-revealed compassion that you sense he's deliberately not putting out too much, lest his own fragile self-image come a-tumbling down. Other times, he trips over his own narrative, and the humor feels a bit heavy-handed and at times strange, almost out of context, like a section was edited out, with only one remaining, lone, odd sentence standing there like a sole survivor in a battle, but I am never sure of what. I felt like Burroughs alternated often while writing this, either chuckling to him, or crying a little. It's a good, natural tone, but was at times irresponsible. I felt like he could've used more depth. Certain characters could've used a bit more exploration, and he was a bit fickle, using one characters for laughs, and then dropping them to pick up another for his amusement. This got to be a little tedious and also a little lacking in honesty. It was as though he picked out the most weird people to talk about and the second someone stopped being weird, he lost interest in wanting to talk about them in the book. I just don't find that authentic...maybe that's why he's compared to Eggers. If you're squeamish, don't buy this book. It's pretty graphic in all senses. I've read a number of reviews along the 'EW' vein here, and I feel that, to be fair, Burroughs' sex scenes were not by any mean gratuitous. They DID tie in to the story and the big picture; if they hadn't then it would be meaningless. But we're talking about a troubled young man whose budding sexual identity is vulnerable and new to him (assuming, again, this is a real story). Let's not shoot someone down if they write things we don't like which they've lived through...it's a MEMOIR, so it's not going to be pretty. To say that writing about certain 'gross' things is horrible is ok, given that one doesn't go around passing jugement that this is so awful, they shouldn't write about it. Why NOT? It's a memoir! If you're easily offended, then know your boundaries enough to not cross them with reading this book, and please don't judge someone who was misguided and lost for their own creative attemps at trying to make sense out of their screwed up life, even if the attempts are awkward and not to your liking. There are also other parts which are extremely graphic...I won't tell you, sorry :-)...but they are pretty gross. However, I was entertained by them. I have a sick sense of humor, and I'm not the only one. And I am really alright with this in myself. But really, please, if you are easily offended and disgusted, then you will recoil in horror. Even I did (while laughing). So...you're warned. Overall, a decent book, worth a read. But as far as hype...I don't know. I try not to pay attention to that type of thing. I just pick out what interests me and try to not have any expectations.

As I do with all of the books I buy I open it to a random page and begin to read. If I find that I want to continue, I buy it. It rarely fails me. I was drawn into this book by the descriptive language and great character introductions. I could vividly see them in my mind as I read along about their experiences and lives. I was pretty shocked to discover that the events in this book were based on true events and actual people. That being said, this is worth reading. There are moments of laughter, joy, and disbelief that will pull you in just to make sure everyone is ok. It is definitely a window into how some other people live.

Humourous description of a crazy childhood. Beautifully written, funny, moving. It could be the usual sad story of a child abandoned by his parents, but the author manages to tell everything lightly, with humour and no hint of self pity, and still make you reflect on about what is realy going on there.

I don't usually write reviews but this one caught my attention. The randomness and curiosity in this book is so unique, you never know what happens next. You need an open mind to read it but it's totally worth it.

Augusten no es un escritor convencional y eso es lo que más me gusta. Running with scissors hace que una tragedia parezca una comedia.

Love this truly amazing story

il libro è divertente, dissacrante e amaro al tempo stesso. Follia e disincantata lucidità accompangano il lettore dalla prima all'ultima pagina delle avventura del buon Augusten, anche se la lettura in lingua originale è consigliata solo a chi conosce veramente bene l'inglese. Sospetto infatti che la versione su kindle sarebbe stata molto più comoda da leggere per via dell'ottimo dizionario monolingue integrato. Questa edizione è particolarmente scomoda perchè di dimensioni lillpuziane, che regalano un libro spesso quanto largo (quasi un cubo, praticamente!) A parte questo, lettura consigliatissima.