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A review of Running With Scissors: A Memoir

by Augusten Burroughs

An autobiography of a childhood that unravels into a tragi-comedy of Shakespearian magnitude.

Reviewed by: Helen Harvey
About Helen Harvey

Running With Scissors: A Memoir Were this account of an anything but “normal” childhood a work of fiction I would categorize it as a hysterically funny and surreal romp through an adolescence of nightmarish proportions. Sadly, this book is not fiction, and I found myself disgusted and guilty for laughing at what, today would, and should, have the authorities and powers that be knocking each other over in their rush to extract the poor child from such suffering.

Finding himself dumped by a ‘wanna-be’ poet of a mother upon her depraved psychiatrist and his ill-adjusted family, Augusten struggles for love, attention, and with homosexuality, amongst squalor befitting a human tragedy the likes of which would make national news headlines. With a vintage electro-shock therapy machine for a plaything, and the altogether unsavory influence of being befriended by a pedophile, you know that with every turn of the page things can only get worse – and they surely do.

Yet from this tragedy comes great hilarity, and it is impossible to resist reading just one more page before putting the book down. It is an irresistible crash-course into just how twisted and sick adults can be, and just how horrendous childhood can be, while at the same time being a life-lesson in just how grateful you should be for having lived within a family that cared enough about you to make you do your homework, ground you for staying out after 7pm on a school night, only let you ride your bicycle if you’re wearing a helmet, and other boring family stuff like that.

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Running With Scissors

Copyright © by Helen Harvey, 2002

Reviewed by Helen Harvey:
-- Running With Scissors - by Augusten Burroughs
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