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Jun 02, 2008

Tee rated it:

Burroughs is dramatic. He's a ranting, raving, immensely creative, drama queen. I spent most of the book thinking thoughts like this whilst rolling my eyes. There was a lot of could have, maybe, 'I think he might have', in this book. He writes well, but without fail, he makes me cringe every several pages. The bright! he stared at the bright! when he was a year and a half old.

I think abuse of children in any form, is horrid. That includes anything Burroughs' father may have done, wh More...

4 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jul 02, 2011

K.D. rated it:

Early this year, I read Augusten Burrough’s bestselling memoir about his dysfunctional family in Running With Scissors (2002). It covers the time that Burroughs spent living in the home of his mother’s therapist. I was enjoying it (after all, Augusten Burroughs ranks #15 in the Top 25 Funniest People in America according to a magazine's survey) until it came to that detailed oral sex scene between him and the other male character towards the end of the book. That threw me off not because I am sq More...

11 comments like (11 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2008

Melissa rated it:

I had to stop reading this because I was so infuriated by the first chapter. I'm sorry, but there is NO WAY Augusten Burroughs remembers looking at the mobile above his bed when he was not even a year old (and in such detail!), or what the bottle tasted like at that age (or being sad when it was taken out of his mouth!), or that he was thinking the moment his friend got lost at the seaside ("I just assumed he'd never return"... what toddler thinks like that?). After "Running With More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Today's review is much longer than Goodreads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

I've mentioned here regularly the entire idea of there being an "underground-arts canon;" that is, that just like the academic community, what we call the modern cutting-edge arts has now been around More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2010

Betsy rated it:

CAVEAT: This book is potentially triggering for survivors of physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse, as well as animal lovers.

I heard Augusten Burroughs said, and I paraphrase, that Running with Scissors was a joyous romp compared with this book. Now that I have read it, I understand why. Running with Scissors does seem like a collection of insouciant anecdotes juxtaposed with the raw, unpolished emotionality that Burroughs unfurls in this narrative.

I've read doubts More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Jul 30, 2008

Jan rated it:

Wow.

This is a tough one... A tough review to write, a tough book to read.

Normally I like Burroughs' books, but I am truly torn over this one.

Things I liked: The description, the imagery. I truly FELT (not just UNDERSTOOD) what he was writing. I also liked the way the book flowed. It was chronological for the most part, which made sense, but it wasn't rigid. It wasn't a day-by-day diary of his life. That would've been too much. Finally, I liked the threads he More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 02, 2008

Paul rated it:

I like Augusten. In this post-Frey Scandal world, it seems anyone who writes memoir has suddenly become suspect and frankly, I resent it. No one ever screamed FRAUD at Truman Capote for fictionalizing his past – well, at least not to his face, I’d imagine. Anyway, much has been made of the fact that the quirky humor that has kind of defined his style thus far is missing from this book (and make no mistake: it is) but then the subject at hand, viz., his alcoholic and possibly psychotic father, do More...

4 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 12, 2008

Cat rated it:

god, it almost pains me to leave augusten burroughs a shoddy review but im sorry, this book bored me to death.

one of the things i most admire and apriceiate about A.B. is his outstanding humor and wit despite the traumatic events that have shaped his life. this book lacked the humor.

and when you take away the humor, you are left with a husk. a husk filled with crap.

another thing that really drove me mad, were all the seeming contradictions that i am left from More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2008

William rated it:

Augusten Burroughs is one of my favorite contemporary authors, and it has always puzzled me a bit regarding the debate as to whether or not the events in "Running With Scissors," and now "A Wolf at the Table," are ultimately word for word truth. Given the corroboration from his older brother who has written his own memoir, I would have to say that there is a good chance that much of what Burroughs writes is based on his actual experiences. I suppose if I were a charac More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 31, 2008

malic rated it:

this book is terrifying. it's about a little boy who longs for love from his father, who in return psychologically terrorizes him.

This is Burroughs' third full-length memoir, and it takes place mostly before the time Running With Scissors was written about, with a couple of stories that take place in his adulthood. However, I think I would still recommend reading his books in order of when he wrote them.

A Wolf starts with a melodramatic tone, and then Burroughs j More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2011

Anita rated it:

I think this is a fine book but I have no idea if you should read it or not. If you don’t know what I know, maybe it won’t be worth it to you. Because I think, at its heart, this is less a memoir for me than a book of kinship, a description of what it is like to be small and terrified, held in thrall to a mentally ill and at times despicable parent, to never feel peace, to watch creatures you love die (or in my case disappear entirely without a trace) and have nothing you can do about any of it. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 11, 2008

Mac rated it:

I love everything else Augusten Burroughs has written, especially "Dry" and "Sellivision", but this one just didn't seem to be up to his usual standards. As I was reading it,I kept wondering if he got behind deadline for the next book he owed his publisher and came up with this at the last minute. There was also a certain "so what" factor that seemed to permeate the whole concept. His father was a particularly unpleasant person; so what? One of the things that make More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 23, 2008

Terry rated it:

I do like Burroughs; I like his essays rather than his sustained writing. I feel like I'm the only one in America who didn't like Running With Scissors. This book...hmm. It's very frightening, and Burroughs as ever is compulsively readable. Yet I was occasionally confused; the jacket copy refers ominously to "the games", but that reference only appears once near the very end of the book and it's never clear what it means, exactly. This, linked with a scene in which Burroughs wakes up i More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2009

Gustine rated it:

Wonderful news! I was wrong about Augusten; he has proven beyond a doubt that he did have another award-winning book in him after all. I had declared him utterly finished after his book Magical Thinking, his collection of brief nonfiction essays in which he came across as an animal-hating, child-hating, bitter, angry person with an overly inflated ego. If I remember correctly, that (unfinished) book went into the trash because it wasn’t even fit for library donation. I thought he had nothing els More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 21, 2008

Sharon rated it:

typical burroughs, except not funny. dude has had a rough life, that's for sure. if you're a fan, read it. If not, skip it, unless you want to feel better by comparison about your own pathological upbringing.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2008

Luke rated it:

If you've read and enjoyed Burroughs' 'Running With Scissors' then there's really no excuse for not reading 'A Wolf at the Table' - purely because it provides the other half of the story.

Let me clarify. While Burroughs' earlier memoir revealed what a uniquely torturous childhood he'd had, it also presented it in a very John Irving kind of way - horrible, yet camp and darkly fabulous. There were, amongst the freaky parenting and bizarre psychotherapy (wankroom, anyone?) moments of hap More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2008

Kristen rated it:

I read Running With Scissors and was alternately horrified and fascinated with the author's life. I read Scissors with a weird detachment, viewing it instead as a fictional memoir, because it was too difficult to read, imagining that what he described actually happened to him.

But, I did enjoy his writing style, the wit, and his sense of humor. I wouldn't describe his books as "funny" but there is a certain dark biting humor to them.

I started out reading this bo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2008

Sharon rated it:

“I knew I had an ugly life. I knew I was lonely and I was scared. I thought something might be wrong with my father, wrong in the worst possible way. I believed he might contain a pathology of the mind -- an emptiness -- a knocking hollow where his soul should have been. But I also knew that one day, I would grow up. One day, I would be twenty, or thirty, or forty, even fifty and sixty and seventy and eighty and maybe even one hundred years old. And all those years were mine, they belonged to no More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2008

Gabriel rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 16, 2008

Lisa rated it:

07/08 Much darker, without the humorous asides. Listening to Augusten read is a little like watching a performance art piece. His speech is very deliberate and slow; at first annoying, I think I can settle into this well. Poignant childhood memories so far.

08/08 Stunning! I am so glad that I listened to this on audiobook rather than reading it. It is compelling, utterly moving, and miraculous. Only afterwards, in a short interview on the final CD did I learn that Augusten's vision f More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2008

Christine rated it:

Some of the "Average Joe" negative reviews of A Wolf at the Table that I've read online complain that author Augusten Burroughs' "didn't really know what it was like to be abused" or that Burroughs' mental anguish in the hands of his father's quasi-psychotic unpredictability "was boring, same day in day out" or that "it wasn't funny." Wow. What a bunch of self-centered, whiny turds.

A Wolf at The Table is what it is - a simple memoir of a son wh More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2008

Cindy rated it:

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2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 04, 2008

Joe rated it:

So I rated this one four stars. Not because I loved this book, but because I thought it was so well-written, it's stuck with me, haunted me, risen up and broken me down again. This is not an easy book to read. It is compelling. It is harrowing. It is brave. Did I mention harrowing? Augusten Burroughs delves into the relationship with his father, which he's mentioned briefly before in his other books. Upon reading this one, you know why he waited to write it, and why he devoted an entire book to More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 13, 2008

Malbadeen added it

I recently shared my distaste for Burroughs writing with someone that thinks highly of him. She insisted that if I heard him speak in person my opinion would be diferent. while I'm not willing to pay 27.00 to hear him speak this month, I did listent to this interview:

http://www.apple.com/podcasts/meettheaut...

and now not only am I further convinced that his writing is self indulgent, rambalings; insulting in their pointedness but I also think he is:

CUCKOO! CUCKOO! C More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 11, 2008

Leela rated it:

This is the memoir I read for my independent reading project.
I thought this book was very interesting. I also found it completely frustrating, though. THe entire book put my in a really bad mood, mainly because It was just such a horrible story. It was sad, and I wanted to go in the book myself and help out the poor kid. But I couldn't, and that's what made me mad. It made me mad that nobody realized what was going on inside the house that the kid was staying in and that nobody DID anythi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 19, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

Wow this book was dark, very dark. It felt creepy just reading certain chapters. As always, extremely well written on his part. Some of the details were incredibly clear for someone so young and I have read many others challenging that...but in my opinion, it is not my place to judge anothers memory. Everyone is different in terms of what they can recall from childhood, espeically when those events are traumatic. It is amazing what a traumatized child can tell you in detail about things.
More...

9 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2008

Anastasia rated it:

What a sad little book. Burroughs' descriptions of trying so hard to get his father's love and attention just broke my heart. I read this in a few hours, but it made me very curious about the rest of his family-- his mother and brother are both authors, too.

I think anyone who is a parent might find this book interesting. Burroughs does a great job of reminding us how even very, very young children feel. His retelling of his childhood feelings about his parents made me ponder how my s More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2009

Anne rated it:

Several years ago, I read Augusten Burroughs's memoir Running with Scissors (later turned into a movie). I found it disturbing that he had so much abuse and tragedy in his life, but he seemed intent on minimizing it and just trying to get a laugh. Reviews of the book hailed it as hilarious, and given that it was supposedly true, I found the whole thing profoundly sad. Since then, I have been reluctant to read his other books, but something moved me the other day and I picked this one up. A Wolf More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Pikachu rated it:

I've heard there were some controversies about Augusten Burroughs' books regarding the accuracy of some of his statements about his family. According to the rumors I heard, some of them were actually trying to sue him for slander and libel. I don't really know anything about that (but if you do, please, feel free to enlighten me with links), but I will say this: if Augusten's father did even half of the things mentioned in this book, he was a terrible, terrible man.

A Wolf at the Table More...

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Dec 04, 2011

Nancy rated it:

I read this book after reading Running With Scissors, thinking that I would get better insight into the author's experience of his father.

Though Burroughs was clearly unsatisfied with his relationship with his father, this book does not illustrate the supposed magnitude of his father's "evilness". Burroughs was afraid that his father was homocidal, but failed to convey that sentiment in this story. Yes, he was an unaffectionate & unpleasant person, but evil? The only thing More...

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