Friday 5 December 2014

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs


If you had been thinking your life was crazy, absurd, nonsense and so on, this book would definitely change your mind! Why? ‘Cause no matter how many weird things have been happening in your life, nothing can even remotely compare to the one that have been happening to Augusten!!!
At the beginning you think it is all just a result of the great fantasy of the author, but that “memoir” written on the cover keeps on ringing a bell in your mind, so just to make things straight: "Mesdames et Messieurs, after an extended research I can confirm this is indeed a true story!!!!"

So when in the book you read of kids making a hole in the ceiling with the parents cheering them for their fantasy, or when you read about a doctor that treat their patients by “adopting” them, or even more when you read about a family finding God’s sign into their faecis, do not even wonder, it is all true!!
But who is Augusten (apart from being the author of the book)? He is a teenager as many, facing the divorce of his parents and the hysterical crisis of his “artistic-mother” who gives him away to be raised by her psychiatrist's family. What makes this memoir so special is the fact that Augusten at first unwillingly, then maybe even enjoying it a bit, is the “victim” of the craziness of people around him. In his journey looking for normality he would be surrender by a crazy bunch of people with the most weird characteristics.
How he will survive to all this is even more crazy than the all book itself.

The book would be very funny, if it was not a true story, actually to say the truth it is still at times hilarious (seeing it happening to someone else, of course).

I read there was actually a legal case issued by the psychiatrist's  familyafter the publication of the book, for invasion of privacy, defamation, and emotional distress caused by the "most fictional" book on the life of the characters. The cause was at the end won by the author, that was "forced" just to change the acknowledgement of the book, that was declared a non fictional memoir.

I am definitely going to watch the movie based on the book, I am very curious to know how this craziness would be transposed in a film.



“I told myself, 'All I want is a normal life'. But was that true? I wasn't so sure. Because there was a part of me that enjoyed hating school, and the drama of not going, the potential consequences whatever they were. I was intrigued by the unknown. I was even slightly thrilled that my mother was such a mess. Had I become addicted to crisis? I traced my finger along the windowsill. 'Want something normal, want something normal, want something normal', I told myself.”

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