A Pretty Good Autobiography (Running with Scissors: A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs)

Member Name: yahoo2003

Product:	Running with Scissors: A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs
Date:	24/07/09 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting, Funny Stories, A Crazy Family interesting to read about

Disadvantages: Slightly flat in parts and would have liked a follow-up at the end

I read this book on holiday.

The Plot:

This is an autobiography about a Augusten's extremely strange childhood and family life. He is the son of a very unhappily married couple who fight consistently - his mother is a quirky character and his father is a solemn, quiet type. The arguing gets so bad that his mother starts to see a psychiatrist. Without giving away too much detail about the plot, Augusten ends up going to live with his mother's psychiatrist in an extremely strange set-up where the house is full of his own children but also other interesting characters. There are no rules and normally no-one goes to school so everything is chaotic. The book recounts his experience of living in this strange set-up and shows how he grows up as a result of this.

Verdict:

I enjoyed reading this book as I do enjoy reading most autobiographies. It was really interesting reading about such a strange family set-up and some of the stories and the ways of the characters in the stories were totally crazy. As well as there being generally strange and funny stories, there was also a darker side to the book about the way that this way of life affected the characters - everything is not just fun and madness.

I think the problem with autobiographies such as this is sometimes that there is not one particular pivotal point in the book - there is no specific point in the book where all the action is building up towards like there often is in a film or a fictional book, because of course it is real and these things cannot be faked in an autobiography. I did enjoy reading it but found some parts a little flat, and I would also have liked to have more of a follow-up at the end in terms of where his life went.

Summary: A pretty good autobiography about a very strange family