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Running with Scissors: A Memoir Kindle Edition
The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir from Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors, now a Major Motion Picture!
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock therapy machine under the stairs....
Running with Scissors is at turns foul and harrowing, compelling and maniacally funny. But above all, it chronicles an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSt. Martin's Press
- Publication dateApril 1, 2010
- File size1596 KB
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Review
"... hilarious, freaky-deaky, berserk, controlled, transcendent, touching, affectionate, vengeful, all-embracing. It makes you happy that there's such a thing in the world as a string of written words." - Carolyn See, The Washington Post
"Beautifully written with a finely tuned sense of style and wit...this memoir of a nightmarish youth is both compulsively entertaining and tremendously provocative." - Publishers Weekly
"Ever woder what it might be like to grow up in a lunatic asylum run by the lunatics? Augusten Burroughs' hilarious and horrifying memoir, Running with Scissors, tells the story..." - Los Angeles Times
From the Back Cover
--Entertainment Weekly
"COMPELLING."
--USA Today
"BREATHTAKING."
--Tampa Tribune
THINK YOUR CHILDHOOD WAS WEIRD?
ENTER THIS TWELVE-YEAR-OLD'S WACKY WORLD…
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor's bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year-round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull, an electroshock therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing, and bestselling account of an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances…
"Promotes visceral responses (of laughter, wincing, retching) on nearly every page...funny and rich with child's-eye details of adults who have gone off the rails."
--The New York Times Book Review
Visit: www.augusten.com
About the Author
Read by the author.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Gratitude doesn’t begin to describe it: Jennifer Enderlin, Christopher Schelling, John Murphy, Gregg Sullivan, Kim Cardascia, Michael Storrings, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press. Thank you: Lawrence David, Suzanne Finnamore, Robert Rodi, Bret Easton Ellis, Jon Pepoon, Lee Lodes, Jeff Soares, Kevin Weidenbacher, Lynda Pearson, Lona Walburn, Lori Greenburg, John DePretis, and Sheila Cobb. I would also like to express my appreciation to my mother and father for, no matter how inadvertently, giving me such a memorable childhood. Additionally, I would like to thank the real-life members of the family portrayed in this book for taking me into their home and accepting me as one of their own. I recognize that their memories of the events described in this book are different than my own. They are each fine, decent, and hard-working people. The book was not intended to hurt the family. Both my publisher and I regret any unintentional harm resulting from the publishing and marketing of Running with Scissors. Most of all, I would like to thank my brother for demonstrating, by example, the importance of being wholly unique. Chapter One: SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT
My mother is standing in front of the bathroom mirror smelling polished and ready; like Jean Nate, Dippity Do and the waxy sweetness of lipstick. Her white, handgun-shaped blow-dryer is lying on top of the wicker clothes hamper, ticking as it cools. She stands back and smoothes her hands down the front of her swirling, psychedelic Pucci dress, biting the inside of her cheek.
"Damn it," she says, "something isn't right."
Yesterday she went to the fancy Chopping Block salon in Amherst with its bubble skylights and ficus trees in chrome planters. Sebastian gave her a shag.
"That hateful Jane Fonda," she says, fluffing her dark brown hair at the crown. "She makes it look so easy." She pinches her sideburns into points that accentuate her cheekbones.
People have always said she looks like a young Lauren Bacall, especially in the eyes.
I can't stop staring at her feet, which she has slipped into treacherously tall red patent-leather pumps. Because she normally lives in sandals, it's like she's borrowed some other lady's feet. Maybe her friend Lydia's feet. Lydia has teased black hair, boyfriends and an above-ground pool. She wears high heels all the time, even when she's just sitting out back by the pool in her white bikini, smoking menthol cigarettes and talking on her olive-green Princess telephone. My mother only wears fancy shoes when she's going out, so I've come to associate them with a feeling of abandonment and dread.
I don't want her to go. My umbilical cord is still attached and she's pulling at it. I feel panicky.
I'm standing in the bathroom next to her because I need to be with her for as long as I can. Maybe she is going to Hartford, Connecticut. Or Bradley Field International Airport. I love the airport, the smell of jet fuel, flying south to visit my grandparents.
I love to fly.
0
When I grow up, I want to be the one who opens those cabinets above the seats, who gets to go into the small kitchen where everything fits together like a shiny silver puzzle. Plus, I like uniforms and I would get to wear one, along with a white shirt and a tie, even a tie-tack in the shape of airplane wings. I would get to serve peanuts in small foil packets and offer people small plastic cups of soda. "Would you like the whole can?" I would say. I love flying south to visit my grandparents and I've already memorized almost everything these flight attendants say. "Please make sure that you have extinguished all smoking materials and that your tray table is in its upright and locked position." I wish I had a tray table in my bedroom and I wish I smoked, just so I could extinguish my smoking materials.
"Okay, I see what's the matter," my mother says. She turns to me and smiles. "Augusten, hand me that box, would you?"
Her long, frosted beige nail points to the box of Kotex maxi pads on the floor next to the toilet bowl. I grab the box and hand it to her.
She takes two pads from the box and sets it on the floor at her feet. I notice that the box is reflected in the side of her shoe, like a small TV. Carefully, she peels the paper strip off the back of one of the pads and slides it through the neck of her dress, placing it on top of her left shoulder. She smoothes the silk over the pad and puts another one on the right side. She stands back.
"What do you think of that!" she says. She is delighted with herself. It's as if she has drawn a picture and placed it on her own internal refrigerator door.
"Neat," I say.
"You have a very creative mother," she says. "Instant shoulder pads."
The blow-dryer continues to tick like a clock, counting down the seconds. Hot things do that. Sometimes when my father or mother comes home, I will go down and stand near the hood of the car to listen to it tick, moving my face in close to feel the heat.
"Are you coming upstairs with me?" she says. She takes her cigarette from the clamshell ashtray on the back of the toilet. My mother loves frozen baked stuffed clams, and she saves the shells to use as ashtrays, stashing them around the house.
I am fixated on the dryer. The vent holes on the side have hairs stuck in them, small hairs and white lint. What is lint? How does it find hair dryers and navels? "I'm coming."
"Turn off the light," she says as she walks away, creating a small whoosh that smells sweet and chemical. It makes me sad because it's the smell she makes when she's leaving.
"Okay," I say. The orange light from the dehumidifier that sits next to the wicker laundry hamper is looking at me, and I look back at it. Normally it would terrify me, but because my mother is here, it is okay. Except she is walking fast, has already walked halfway across the family room floor, is almost at the fireplace, will be turning around the corner and heading up the stairs and then I will be alone in the dark bathroom with the dehumidifier eye, so I run. I run after her, certain that something is following me, chasing me, just about to catch me. I run past my mother, running up the stairs, using my legs and my hands, charging ahead on all fours. I make it to the top and look down at her.
She climbs the stairs slowly, deliberately, reminding me of an actress on the way to the stage to accept her Academy Award. Her eyes are trained on me, her smile all mine. "You run up those stairs just like Cream."
Cream is our dog and we both love her. She is not my father's dog or my older brother's. She's most of all not my older brother's since he's sixteen, seven years older than I, and he lives with roommates in Sunderland, a few miles away. He dropped out of high school because he said he was too smart to go and he hates our parents and he says he can't stand to be here and they say they can't control him, that he's "out of control" and so I almost never see him. So Cream doesn't belong to him at all. She is mine and my mother's. She loves us most and we love her. We share her. I am just like Cream, the golden retriever my mother loves.
I smile back at her.
I don't want her to leave.
Cream is sleeping by the door. She knows my mother is leaving and she doesn't want her to go either. Sometimes, I wrap aluminum foil around Cream's middle, around her legs and her tail and then I walk her through the house on a leash. I like it when she's shiny, like a star, like a guest on the Donnie and Marie Show.
Cream opens her eyes and watches my mother, her ears twitching, then she closes her eyes again and exhales heavily. She's seven, but in dog years that makes her forty-nine. Cream is an old lady dog, so she's tired and just wants to sleep.
In the kitchen my mother takes her keys off the table and throws them into her leather bag. I love her bag. Inside are papers and her wallet and cigarettes and at the bottom, where she never looks, there is loose change, loose mints, specs of tobacco from her cigarettes. Sometimes I bring the bag to my face, open it and inhale as deeply as I can.
"You'll be long asleep by the time I come home," she tells me. "So good night and I'll see you in the morning."
"Where are you going?" I ask her for the zillionth time.
"I'm going to give a reading in Northampton," she tells me. "It's a poetry reading at the Broadside Bookstore."
My mother is a star. She is just like that lady on TV, Maude. She yells like Maude, she wears wildly colored gowns and long crocheted vests like Maude. She is just like Maude except my mother doesn't have all those chins under her chins, all those loose expressions hanging off her face. My mother cackles when Maude is on. "I love Maude," she says. My mother is a star like Maude.
"Will you sign autographs?"
She laughs. "I may sign some books."
My mother is from Cairo, Georgia. This makes everything she says sound like it went through a curling iron. Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.
Where is my father?
"Where is your father?" my mother says, checking her watch. It's a Timex, silver with a black leather strap. The face is small and round. There is no date. It ticks so loud that if the house is quiet, you can hear it.
The house is quiet. I can hear the ticking of my mother's watch.
Outside, the trees are dark and tall, they lean in toward the house, I imagine because the house is bright inside and the trees crave the light, like bugs.
We live in the woods, in a glass house surrounded by trees; tall pine trees, birch trees, ironwoods.
The deck extends from the house into the trees. You can stand on it and reach and you might be able to pull a leaf off a tree, or a sprig of pine.
My mother is pacing. She is walking through the living room, ...
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B002ASFPX2
- Publisher : St. Martin's Press (April 1, 2010)
- Publication date : April 1, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 1596 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 322 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 1843541513
- Best Sellers Rank: #158,897 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #32 in LGBTQ+ Biographies & Memoirs
- #148 in LGBTQ+ Biographies (Books)
- #156 in Biographies & Memoirs of Authors
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Augusten Burroughs is the author of the autobiographical works "Running with Scissors," "Dry," "Magical Thinking," "Possible Side Effects" and "A Wolf at the Table," all of which were New York Times bestsellers. "Running with Scissors" remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two consecutive years and was made into a Golden Globe-nominated film starring Annette Bening. His only novel, "Sellevision," is currently in development as a series for NBC. "Dry," Augusten's memoir of his alcoholism and recovery, is being developed by Showtime. In addition, Burroughs is currently creating an original prime-time series for CBS. Augusten's latest book is called "You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas."
Twice named to Entertainment Weekly's list of the funniest people in America, Augusten has also been the subject of a Vanity Fair cover story and a Jeopardy! answer. His books have made guest appearances in two James Patterson novels, one Linkin Park music video, numerous television shows and a porn movie.
Augusten has been a photographer since childhood and many of his images can be seen on his website, www.augusten.com. He lives in New York City.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the memoir easy to read and entertaining. They appreciate the author's sense of humor and edgy writing style. The story is thought-provoking and relatable, with interesting characters. However, opinions differ on the story quality - some find it truthful and enjoyable, while others consider it overblown and bizarre.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the memoir engaging and well-written. They describe it as an insightful read that draws them in and makes the story worth reading. Readers also mention the author is a masterful storyteller and his book is interesting.
"...Burroughs is a masterful storyteller and I believed his story...." Read more
"...word choice is perfect, the emotions he invokes (and provokes) are delightful. The editing in this book is fabulous as well...." Read more
"...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...." Read more
"...Overall, this is a very well-written memoir that combines humor and brutal honesty to describe the author’s experiences from childhood to young..." Read more
Customers enjoy the humor in the book. They find the writing style edgy and entertaining. The dialogue is described as witty and clever. The author's casual yet dramatic voice carries them along as he experiences adulthood. However, the tone is explicit, with moments of sadness and grit.
"...families, coming out of it sane and productive with a great sense of humor and edgy style of writing, this is for you!..." Read more
"...The book is full of flavor and you will chuckle for all the wrong reasons...." Read more
"...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...." Read more
"...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..." Read more
Customers appreciate the writing quality of the book. They praise the author's style, honesty, and mastery of the text. The book is easy to read, honest, and gets you deep inside the head. Readers enjoy the descriptive language and great characters. The editing is fabulous, and situations are humorous, clear, and honest.
"...out of it sane and productive with a great sense of humor and edgy style of writing, this is for you!..." Read more
"...This book is well written. I read the whole book within a couple of nights...." Read more
"...The editing in this book is fabulous as well. Hats off to the folks who made this possible in the sense that it is so well-written...." Read more
"...It rarely fails me. I was drawn into this book by the descriptive language and great character introductions...." Read more
Customers find the book thought-provoking and relatable. They appreciate the author's insights into stress and emotional issues. The humor and morbid outlook are described as entertaining. Overall, readers find the book insightful and interesting.
"...yet I still really enjoyed it, and it really haunted me, and that counts for a lot...." Read more
"...His descriptions are vivid, his word choice is perfect, the emotions he invokes (and provokes) are delightful...." Read more
"...There are moments of laughter, joy, and disbelief that will pull you in just to make sure everyone is ok...." Read more
"...to Augusten for presenting unique books which both entertain and inspire." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's character development. They find the characters interesting and quirky, with messed-up lives. The book is described as a fun read about bizarre people. Readers appreciate the author's talent and say it's for someone with an open mind.
"...Burroughs is a wonderfully gifted writer. His descriptions are vivid, his word choice is perfect, the emotions he invokes (and provokes) are..." Read more
"...I was drawn into this book by the descriptive language and great character introductions...." Read more
"...life of the Finches, particularly the home environment, is described in precise detail leaving the reader feeling as if they were sitting in the..." Read more
"...chaos that it creates, but in this memoir, there were nearly no normal characters to act as reference points...." Read more
Customers have mixed views on the story. Some find it engaging and entertaining, with a ring of truth. They appreciate the author's honesty and vulnerability. Others find the story absurd, bizarre, shocking, and emotionally disturbing.
"...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...." Read more
"...it was fun to read, but also extremely disturbing, and very, very sad...." Read more
"...Overall, this is a very well-written memoir that combines humor and brutal honesty to describe the author’s experiences from childhood to young..." Read more
"...book so much had someone ever said to me, "It's very disturbing and sad, but the author has a gift for finding some light in the darkness" I might..." Read more
Customers have different views on the perspective. Some find it insightful and thought-provoking, making them question things in new ways. Others feel the sexual content is not suitable for sensitive readers, and the childhood depicted is shocking and heartbreaking.
"...Most interestingly, the novel makes you question things in entirely new ways. The technical style of the book is unique...." Read more
"...So I'll recommend this book, too, but not for the faint at heart. And now I'll have to get "Dry" so I can find out the rest of the story." Read more
"...--remindful of that other Burroughs--but Augusten has striking powers of observation, recall and description that lend credence to his bizarre..." Read more
"...Augusten Burroughs is handsome (I viewed his photo on his book), observant, a good communicator & a good writer...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book. Some find it fast-paced and engaging, while others find it difficult to follow and tedious at times. They also mention that some sequences seem gratuitous and lack clarity.
"...Burrough quickly moves through back story to main plot line and begins shocking the reader...." Read more
"...This got to be a little tedious and also a little lacking in honesty...." Read more
"...It quickly grabbed my attention, and held it. Yes, there were some appalling things that happened, but nothing that caused me to gasp in horror...." Read more
"I had no idea what this was about. It was far more graphically detailed than expected. Triggers Homosexual rape and pedophilia...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2011The 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.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2006I 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.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2012After buying the movie and watching it several times through, I decided to purchase this book and give it a read. This book is well written. I read the whole book within a couple of nights. The book is full of flavor and you will chuckle for all the wrong reasons.
The book contains much more than what was presented in the movie. The ending of the book is different from the movie ending. I found this shocking. In my opinion, the movie only contains about 65% of the book. The movie leaves out much needed background information which was provided in the first few chapters & throughout later chapters of the book.
While reading Running with Scissors, I've noticed that the flow of the book is different than what is presented in the movie. In the movie version, the director blended a few chapters together & took them out of sequence. Also, the movie added some scenes which did not happen in the book. I won't list them since I don't want to spoil it for you.
Some minor comparisons I found between the book & the movie: In the book Augustin and Hope were really close during the first quarter of the book. The movie suggests that they are rather distant. Natalie is described as fat or chunky in the book compared to her slender appearance in the film.
If you loved the movie as much as I do, I highly recommend purchasing this book. It will help knot up all the loose ends of the movie. A must read if you need "Higher Ceilings!"
Grab your Bible and take a dip!
-Xonic
Top reviews from other countries
- Steven R.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Crazy brilliant.
I read this book in two sittings, as I was hooked. Like Augustens brilliant book ‘Dry’ this has it all. It’s shocking, funny, strange and at times very sad. Although this charts the earlier part of his life I’d recommend reading Dry first.
- M.Reviewed in the Netherlands on April 11, 2021
1.0 out of 5 stars Surely the most disgusting book I ever read.
I recommend to not read this book before dinner, because this for sure will make you lose your appetite. This is a book that disgusts you and is a big no for me. Cheers x
- Ben DovaReviewed in Mexico on January 20, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Addictive
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.
-
OihaneReviewed in Spain on January 2, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Fan de Augusten Burroughs
Augusten no es un escritor convencional y eso es lo que más me gusta. Running with scissors hace que una tragedia parezca una comedia.
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in India on December 1, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Hilarious....