Running with Scissors

When my book club read this, we were universally blown away by Augusten Burroughs’ humor. Mining his tumultuous childhood, Burroughs paints a vivid and unforgettable picture of life with the ultimate dysfunctional family.

I went on to read the author’s other memoirs, and while I always enjoy his one-of-a-kind spin on the world, this remains my favorite of his works.

In this book, I saw my dysfunctional family mirrored back at me, but his writing was so good it made me laugh at the absurdity of it at the same time.

As a child, I also looked for the ‘why,” as in “Why am I being treated like this,” but with this book, I finally saw that there was no why. It just is…and that made me feel less to blame and more like a victim of circumstance…of other people’s problems.

Although that was still a lot to handle emotionally, it opened a door for me to stop blaming myself,… show more.

My childhood was defined by chaos: My older brother sometimes chased me with knives and darts and my mother was at one point placed in a psychiatric facility.

After I came out as a teenager in the Deep South, school, once a sanctuary, felt like a place of threat. That constant mayhem explains why Running with Scissors spoke to me so strongly.

The narrator first copes with his mother’s psychotic episodes and, after moving in with his psychiatrist, must forge a path without a support system. Burroughs leans on an older teenager named Natalie, illustrating the power of chosen family.

While stuck on a layover in Georgia, my travelling companion kept chuckling at the book he was reading, which turned out to be Running with Scissors. Having six more hours of our layover, I picked up a copy at the airport bookshop and hunkered down with it. What I found was a “memoire” that burned bridges, exposed alleged atrocities, and explored Burroughs’ extremely unconventional upbringing. It took me a few weeks to digest Running with Scissors after I had finished it. But don’t let that turn you off from it. I say this in the best way possible, if… show more.

This memoir which reads like a novel is a case study in life being stranger than fiction. Many memoirs on mental illness are self-indulgent and frankly boring. This bizarre recounting of an unimaginable childhood is a rollercoaster ride of joy and peril. Like a goldfish looking out at a carnival, waiting for that ping pong ball to land on its head, Burroughs narrates with such natural humor that nearly every horrific part of the story is just darn fun. If you want a book that inspires, entertains, and might just make you feel better about your own life, you’ve found… show more.

Augusten Burroughs memoir, Running With Scissors, was my call to action! Within minutes of reading its opening pages, I had an epiphany. RWS was a roadmap for me; a book that showed me what kind of a memoir I wanted to write, and made it seem maybe do-able. Like my memoir it’s darkly funny, has a wacky cast of characters, insane situations, car chases, a crazy mom, and a main character who survives, reasonably intact in spite of it all. If only there had been a book like RWS when I was growing up! I would have thought that… show more.

All of Augusten Burrough’s books are fantastic. He brings a frank, hilarious, and often dark take on his life. In Running with Scissors, he recounts his bizarre childhood. His mother sends him to live with a psychiatrist where he lives without boundaries. Several characters in the book have challenged Burrough’s recollection of their lives, though the author claims the memoir is accurate. 

This is the most unlikely origin story I’ve ever read – I laughed, cried, and cringed on this boy’s journey to adulthood after being given away by his mother to her absolutely unqualified psychiatrist. Everyone is nuts. Highly entertaining and inspiring.

Running with Scissors is a hysterically funny, poignant, shocking, and clever memoir. It is not a book about science, scent, or murder though plenty of murderous thoughts are recounted. Running with Scissors is a twisted and delightful coming of age story, it is escapism-- yet highly meaningful, and it spoke to me at a time when I was searching for my writing voice. Running With Scissors exploded my brain, and turned on the switch that gave me the words, enthusiasm, and motivation to write. My selfish benefits notwithstanding, this book is an enormous pleasure to read anytime, anywhere, and by… show more.