The author Augusten Burroughs says he compiled this memoir from the many journals he wrote during the seventies as a teen. In its essence the book is about a boy who was raised in one dysfunctional family, then was given up to another dysfunctional and truly weird and crazy one until he somehow broke away. Augusten has an emotionally and physically distant father, a crazy, raving mother, and an older brother with an Asperger's syndrome who has left the family to live on his own. When his parents divorce, Augusten begins to live with his mother, who turns out to be a lesbian. His mother, too involved with her own self, hands Augusten as a son to her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch.

Dr. Finch's house is an unbelievable place. Everyone in the Finch family acts like a lunatic, the doctor being the worst. The first important person from the Finch family in Augusten's life is Hope, Dr. Finch’s daughter who works in her father's office.

Dr. Finch believes a child reaches his maturity at the age of 13, and no adult can tell him or her what to do. While Augusten initially enjoys this freedom, he at the end understands he needed someone caring enough to set boundaries for him.

Dr Finch is a truly sick character. He reads the family's future by the shape of his own excrement, and consults the Bible through “Bible dips” where one asks a question and another flips randomly at a page in the Bible. The doctor also hands out prescription medicine as if candy and encourages the sexual relationships of all his children as well as the homosexual relationship of 13-year-old Augusten and his 33-year-old adopted pedophile son.

The doctor's younger daughter Natalie, however, becomes Augusten's best friend as probably the only good thing that happened to him after Hope.

There are many twists and turns in Augusten's life until the end of the book when he leaves all the Finches for good to be on his own. At the end, he somehow comes out of this horrific experience as a winner.

the sincere tone of the writer.

disgusted. I don't think the contents of the book are funny as the blurbs on the back cover claim. On the contrary, the life of this boy was sad, weird, and horrific.

Augusten Burroughs was born in 1965. He has no formal education beyond elementary school. A very successful advertising copywriter for over seventeen years, he has other books, such as: A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of my Father; Dry: A Memoir; Possible Side Effects; Magical Thinking: True Stories; and You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas.
Running with Scissors has been made into a movie and has received several awards.

Although it sounds too far off, this is a true story, and it is very well written. There is also a certain depth to the book that elevates it above other memoirs. If you cannot stand child abuse, however, I suggest you stay away from it.

A couple of explicit sexual (and homosexual) scenes are described in the book, which they are not really shocking. What is shocking is the abuse this boy received from his parents who did neither want nor care for him, and from Dr. Finch, who let an older man commit statutory rape on a young boy.
The incidents in the book are so off-the-wall that one wonders if they are fictional, but I came to the conclusion that probably they aren't.
There is a positive side to the book. The author came out of his experiences a winner, although not unscathed.

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Created Jul 10, 2009 at 11:45am • Submit your own review...