Running With Scissors

Critics

• Did Golda Meir deserve this?

  Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs Atlantic Books £14.99, pp320 Small-town Massachusetts in the late 1970s. Meet Augusten Burroughs, the campest kid on the block. At 10 years old, he has a passion for polyester, an obsession with his hair an ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• She is walking through the kitchen...

  Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs 320pp, Atlantic, £14.99 "Yes." "So?" "Golly." "No." "My goodness." "Really?" and "Right". These are just a few possible reactions to a book. The reaction you are supposed to have to Augusten Burroughs's mem ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

13 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in pe ... (continue)

  Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock therapy machine under the stairs....

  Running with Scissors is at turns foul and harrowing, compelling and maniacally funny. But above all, it chronicles an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.

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  meganzing said on Jul 3, 2007 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  It's not often I hate a book, but this one I did. Boring, self indulgent, unsympathetic, voyeuristic blah blah. I've had to revise my opinion of the author slightly after seeing he has gone on to write more books (god help us) but at least it means he's hopefully got over his ooh-look-at-me-I'm-so-k ... (continue)

  It's not often I hate a book, but this one I did. Boring, self indulgent, unsympathetic, voyeuristic blah blah. I've had to revise my opinion of the author slightly after seeing he has gone on to write more books (god help us) but at least it means he's hopefully got over his ooh-look-at-me-I'm-so-kooky period.

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  goldtop said on Dec 24, 2008 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Weird, funny yet scary.
  It's like a circus or a zoo full of fascinating psychopaths.

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  cielo_ said on Jul 15, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Disappointing

  It's just a bunch of craziness stories.

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  Black Swan said on Nov 25, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  At times both funny and disturbing, this was a very interesting memoir showing the good and bad in human relationships.

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  krin5292 said on Nov 27, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  A spectacularly dysfunctional family and a narcistically self-indulgent therapist foster parent might seem the ingredients for a grim, grinding, depressing descent into social realism.

  Mostly this is as funny as the blurb promises. The plotting is smartly episodic if a little bit too telegenic.

  My ... (continue)

  A spectacularly dysfunctional family and a narcistically self-indulgent therapist foster parent might seem the ingredients for a grim, grinding, depressing descent into social realism.

  Mostly this is as funny as the blurb promises. The plotting is smartly episodic if a little bit too telegenic.

  My main response to this book was an intention to re-read Christina Stead's 'The Man who Loved Children'. Also about an indulgent but domineering and weirdly attractive father figure. I remember that patriarch as more completely drawn, realistic and therefore much funnier.

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  huntch said on Jun 10, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Hardcover 320 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1843541505
• ISBN-13: 9781843541509
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Pub date: Jan 31, 2003
• Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette and Others
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, 한국 책, Libri Italiani, Suomenkielisiä kirjoja

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