This book is like an onion. You peel one layer of nonsense and your reward is another layer of nonsense. And then if you peel that one.... Well, you get the idea.

First, I will point out that this is a self-help book, not, as I had thought, one of those memoirs Augusten Burroughs is known and beloved for and which I have always been really curious about. The title is SO explicit that it's a self-help book that I really have no excuse. But I was genuinely surprised that "This is How" basically consists of declarative sentences about the things that people should do with their lives. That's what it is. Sentences like these:

"When you try to do or be something, you can't do it or be it. Because trying is not the same as being. Trying flies in a circle around the moment and being is inside of it."

"Confidence is not something you feel or posses; it's something others use to describe what they see when they look at you."

"Shame exists because remote controls for people don't. Shame pushes the button and makes the other person change their channel."

It may seem that I am being unkind to Mr. Burroughs by presenting lines of his book without context, but I am actually not being all that unkind. Context doesn't help him that much. In fact, while reading this book, my reaction to it, line by line, was either "That's terrible advice" or "That doesn't mean anything." I don't think I've ever talked back to a book quite so much.

When he says that if you want to lose weight you should let yourself eat whatever you want all the time because then food will stop being tempting (okay, food will never ever stop being tempting!!) unless you just secretly don't want to lose weight because the last time you were skinny you got too much attention (what?) in which case just accept yourself. Well, accepting yourself is all well and good but I think we all know about that option. Doing it seems more like what people need help with. He doesn't HELP anyone accept themselves, he merely tells them to do it. "Accept yourself." Okay. Thanks. I will. By the way, he suggests you try his method (eating all the cake and ice cream you want) for a few years because that's how long it takes to work. And that was it for that problem! On to solving the next one.

If you've been single for too long you should stop trying to impress anyone you ever go on a date with because they should love you for who you really are. Burroughs was, obviously, very impressed with this banal advice because he elaborated it for several pages. Here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with smiling, telling your funniest story, and being well-groomed when you show up to spend a couple of hours with someone new. These courtesies are not the cause of anyone's loneliness. Nor is "being yourself" something that really means anything specific or useful. His other advice, to not go to the same supermarket all the time and to rotate dry cleaners etc... sigh. Is that really how people fall in love? Because whenever a guy hits on me at the dry cleaners I tell him to f--k off.

While this book isn't good because the advice is so useless, what merited the one star rating is that I didn't see how or why Burroughs was qualified to be giving this (bad) advice. What makes him someone to listen to? He didn't seem like a particularly wise person to me. Nor does he ever really posit himself as one. Which was a problem for me. I am aware that he's a famous writer. I do need more than that.

Even something as simple as a little personal experience would be just fine. "My significant other and I...." None of this is present. He just starts doling out his pearls of wisdom without ever assuring the reader that he's an expert. Maybe it's because he can't. Burroughs tackles nearly any and every issue that a person could worry about. I mean, who is really an expert at life??

It's literally the case that he sat at his laptop, made a list of problems people have, and then wrote some shallow advice to address all it. I guess I just find that truly, truly offensive.

Although maybe I would find any and every self-help book offensive....

If you are reading this review because you are thinking about buying it, please don't. The only value of this book is that it's an excuse to sit there and think about your problems, which is good to do sometimes, actually. But you do that anyway, right? Instead of this book buy some good literature. Or buy a good memoir. Good writing CAN teach you about the world and about yourself and about the things that matter. Absolutely. That is why we read.

Meanwhile, someone who claims to have the answer to all your problems is the one you can immediately eliminate as having answers to any.

All that said......um.....thanks to the publisher for my advanced reader's copy!