what do u think of the book "Running With Scissors"?

Answer 1

I loved the book! I loved Augusten Burroughs's ability to tell a very difficult personal story. He is a great writer. He also has a good sense of humor which is probably how he got through most of his insane life. I found myself laughing during the novel but also thinking about how sad and crazy it seemed. I haven't watched the movie version but I can't wait to see it. Actually, "Running With Scissors is one of my all-time favourite books now. After I read it I decided to read more of Burroughs's books and I read, "Dry" and "Possible Side Effects" and they were really great too! I hope if you haven't read it that you'll consider reading it.

Answer 2

I loved the book - and so did my wife. I was prompted to buy the book by this review I read:
"The events of five years in the life of Augusten Burroughs, as recounted in a memoir that is both horrifying and mordantly funny, are so unbelievable, they make even the most outrageous episode of "The Jerry Springer Show" seem rational by comparison. "Running With Scissors" just might be the most aptly titled book ever written.
The younger son of an alcoholic college professor father and a severely unhinged mother who fancies herself a poet and emulates Anne Sexton, Augusten is 12 when he begins to spend half his life at the filthy, dilapidated home of his mother's shrink, Dr. Finch. The doctor frequently repairs to the back room of his office, which he calls his Masturbatorium, and believes that God is sending messages to him through his own bowel movements. Calling the family into the bathroom, Finch interprets one especially profound celestial epistle: "It means our financial situation is turning around, that's what it means. It means things are looking up. The s-- is pointing out of the pot and up toward heaven, to God."
The extended Finch family includes several biological children; his legal wife, Agnes; three other women whom he considers his wives; and an adopted son named Neil Bookman who is gay and, at 33, becomes 13-year-old Augusten's first boyfriend. That fact doesn't bother Augusten's mother much and disturbs Finch only because he thinks Bookman has a few screws loose. When Finch warns him of Bookman's instability, Augusten says, "I felt like I was buying a used Ford Pinto and the salesman was telling me that as long as I didn't make any sudden stops in the parking lot, it probably wouldn't explode."
The household also includes various patients of Finch, from time to time including Joranne, an obsessive-compulsive who never leaves her upstairs room and eats the caulking from around the bathtub. When Augusten meets her, she is pleasant enough, but "I could have sworn that she briefly eyed the white rubber piping along my sneaker bottoms."
Augusten longs for normalcy, but his own take on normalcy is admittedly skewed. He spends hours flattening his hair to a glistening matt on his head. He methodically chooses his wardrobe for the next day every night before going to bed. "Knowing my clothes were ready gave me a sense of calm. I could control the sharpness of the crease in my doubleknit slacks, even if I couldn't stop my mother from hurling the Christmas tree off the porch like she did one winter. I could polish my 14k gold-plated signet ring with a Q-tip until the gold plating wore off even if I couldn't stop my parents from throwing John Updike novels at each other's heads."
As normalcy becomes more and more elusive, Augusten spends less and less time at school, where he is a complete misfit. When he complains that he can't abide going to school anymore, Finch says he can get out for a long period of time if he fakes a suicide attempt, which the good doctor and Augusten's mother help with. On the way to the mental hospital, Finch gives the boy some Valium and bourbon while his mother entertains everyone with a reading of her latest poem: "This car is taking me to a mental hospital and my mother is treating it like open-mic night at a Greenwich Village cafe," Burroughs comments in typically deadpan style.
"Mother began to go crazy," he says early on. "Not crazy in a let's paint the kitchen bright red! sort of way. But crazy in a gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God sort of way. Gone were the days when she would stand on the deck lighting lemon-scented candles without having to eat the wax."
Funny line, in a way, but as outrageous as the events and characters in "Running With Scissors" are, Burroughs' memoir is shocking and disturbing because it's all real, and at the center of a story that Bunuel might have dreamed up is a little boy whose childhood is prematurely yanked out from under him.
A third of the way through "Running With Scissors," we learn that Burroughs has an older brother named Troy who barely speaks, has no interest in talking to Augusten about "Three's Company" and becoming a talk-show host someday, and who moved away from the family when he was 16. Eventually, Troy is diagnosed as having been born with a mild form of autism. Looking back from the relative safety of having survived into adulthood, Augusten can only conclude that his brother was "inadvertently protected" from the family's collective insanity. He doesn't have to add that his brother was the lucky one."

I'd like to add that another of Burroughs' books, "Dry" is also a great read. I'm an alcoholic - though I don't drink anymore - and so I was able to identity with so many of the incidents he wrote about.
This reader's comment from Amazon sums it all up nicely:
" Augusten Burroughs is one of the most entertaining writers on the current scene. After reading his RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and accepting the fact that it was truly a memoir (ie, he really DID have that childhood!), most of us who loved that book couldn't wait to see if he would be able to maintain his particular level of genius dry humor. Well, here it is. DRY is the continued life of this amazing writer. It is one of the most hilarious books around - Burroughs candid observations written sotto voce without quotation marks could be the dialogue for the best standup comedians on any stage. And he is not kidding!
A book about alcoholism, or rather about any kind of addiction (crack cocaine, alcohol, sex, heroine, etc), is not the expected basis for a comedic book. But Burroughs takes us through blitzkrieg drunkeness, living at the bottom of the toilet, commiting to rehab, then the whole process of AA meetings and therapy and manages to make us laugh uncontrollably. His cast of characters includes his co-workers in his successful career in advertising, his pre-rehab friends, his acquaintances from his gay rehab group, his assorted roommates and quasilovers, and his real devotion to Pighead, a would-be lover now dying of AIDS. Doesn't sound funny, does it? But life has its own way of offering perspectives in bizarre focal fields and Burroughs knows just how to make it all work. His life is a fantasy trip, and a dangerous one at that, but through all his highs and lows he keeps us on his side, and we willingly laugh and cry right along with him. This is a superb second book. Read them both - and then take a little time for introspection about how we all interact, knee deep in our foibles."

I intend to read all the rest of Burroughs books. For a list, please click on the link below.


Hmmm - for some reason, Yahoo isn't letting the link connct. So just google burroughs amazon