Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs

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Monkeyguy
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Joined: 18 Jan 2006 09:04 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Central Florida

Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs

Post by Monkeyguy »

My little sister requested this book from our library because the movie "looked funny." Before she had the chance to read it I took it to work with me (and wow am I glad, it is very graphic) to read. It took me less than a day to finish and even though it isn't a horribly long memoir, that's saying something as the Handmaid's Tale took me almost a month to read.

I was amazed at how realistically AB recreated his dysfunctional childhood. Also, I'm not a big fan of biographies and the like but I was instantly hooked. And despite the weirdness of it all I really wanted to be a part of the craziness.

If you have read this book what are your thoughts and if you haven't, go to the library and check it out... and then read it.

Edit: I felt I should add this little warning - The book contains a lot of foul language as well as some pretty graphic M/M sex scenes.
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Figment
Girl Anachronism
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Joined: 07 Jan 2006 11:24 pm
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Post by Figment »

I haven't read it for several reasons, but I'll probably read it in a bookstore sometime soon because I kind of want to see the movie -- Annette Benning is supposed to have done a very good job in it -- and I am morally opposed to seeing films before I've read the book.

One thing that I want to point out, though, is that most people think that it isn't a memoir or autobiography in the true sense of the world so much as in the "A Million Little Pieces" sense. Meaning that it is more fictional than based in fact. I seem to remember reading that the publishing company was going to move it out of "autobiography" and put it into "fiction." Wonder if they ever did that. And I wonder if the book can stand up to the hype when judged as a work of fiction and not a wrenching exposee of a traumatizing childhood.
Keith
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Joined: 12 Oct 2006 04:44 am
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Post by Keith »

I've read four of his books (sellovision, Running with Scissors, Dry and finally Possible Side Effects)

I'd have to say I actually enjoyed Dry and Possible Side Effects far more than Running with Scissors (those three are his memoirs). Not because they were far less graphic, but just because they were just funnier, and he was an adult in them, dealing with situations that are a little more life-like than a crazy psychologist that your mother signed you over to.
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