Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription medicines and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a paedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorises it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a cappella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward.

Burroughs' perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs' survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all. --John Moe, Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Haha!	Customer Rating:
An original account of Burroughs' insane childhood. Some parts made me wonder if/how much he was was exaggerating but a hilarious read nonetheless. Highly recommended.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Customer Rating:

I am surprised at some of the reviews on this book. I know we all have different tastes but i found it absolutely compelling, sadder than sad, yet at the same time, funny. An unusual book with so much going on...i couldn`t put it down. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed it too. One reviewer does not believe it all happened - i wonder why..? A book worth buying in my opinion, and definately worth reading.

Not to be missed

Customer Rating:

I'd never heard of Augusten Burroughs and it was purely by chance that I picked up his book and took it on holiday with me. What a find. I couldn't put it down and on the way back via Miami airport I found myself in Borders searching for other books of his. I bought Possible Side Effects thinking it was his only other book and didn't sleep on the plane back as couldn't put it down. Imagine my happiness when I discovered he's written others! I bought Dry (superb) and Sellevision (pretty good) and didn't leave the house that weekend. Fair to say I'm hooked and eagerly awaiting the next!

Great book!

Customer Rating:

In the same category as McCrae's Katzenjammer and Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty, Running With Scissors is at once frightening and thrilling. Some will not warm to the antics of one more than slightly insane psychiatrist, but if you've ever been to one, you know how insane they can be. And the one in this book is tops. Trials and tribulations abound in this laugh-out-loud funny and harrowing tale of survival. My only hesitation with the book was that I wish it had been longer. Still, you have to remember that this is a memoir and not a novel. If you liked Christopher Moore's works, or those of Jackson McCrae or David Sedaris, this one will work for you. It did for me.

Compelling, comedic account of a truly shocking childhood.

Customer Rating:

Because this book is so funny you can easily forget to be horrified by the absolutely horrendous childhood being recounted. As this is an account of many and varied cruelties endured by the author, Augusten Burroughs, as a child it is difficult to imagine how the book could be anything but a self-involved traumatic read. But it's not! Burroughs tells his tale in a humorous way, recounting the bizarre incidents of his childhood in almost a light fashion - but the innocence of the narrative is exceptionally poignant. Of course, children often can't yet tell what is normal, what's not and may even find it difficult to recognise cruelty when there's no reliable adult to guide them. The story is told through the eyes of the author when he was a boy and this is what makes it so engaging and captivating. As adults reading it, we can see he needs love and nurturing and we want to scream at the people in his life who are so messed up and self-absorbed that they cannot see what he needs. In essence, the story centres around the boy's relationship with his mother - it's not good. She doesn't really have space in her life for a son - she's too busy with her own affairs and sorting out her own life. So she sends him to stay with her psychiatrist and his family. The psychiatrist and his family have their own problems - to put it mildly - but at least Augusten has a place to stay. Along comes a family friend - a man much older than Augusten - who proceeds to sexually abuse Augusten over a period of time. Clearly, Augusten is describing an insidious type of child abuse, where the abuser seems to delude himself into thinking they are boyfriends. This portion of the book makes for very uncomfortable reading. You see? I said it would be difficult to imagine that this could be a comic memoir - but it is! It's very well written and a really great read. You won't want to put it down till you've finished!