Burroughs: Running With Scissors

Yesterday, I finished Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. That's not so very Easter-like, is it? But then, it snowed all day, which isn't so Easter-like either. It's something I'd been intending to read for the last year or so. And it was wonderfully written and funny and horribly sad all at the same time. It's so much written from the point-of-view of the young Burroughs that we see the world that way. Consequently, when Burroughs is, say, 14 and begins having a sexual affair with a man in his 30s, we don't immediately see the horror, see that this man is violating a teen-ager. Although we know that this is wrong, that this can't be "love," we very much see that Burroughs himself, at age 14, believes this is love, believes that it's OK. He doesn't see himself as victimized, for the most part. In fact, he values this relationship. Horrible things happen to poor Augusten. Yet he keeps going. And he sees the humor in it all. And he's a terrific writer. I totally recommend this book. The subject matter is, at times, troubling, as I think Burroughs intends it to be. And yet, it's all so well written that it's not as difficult to cope with as I, as a reader, had anticipated. And there's just something endearing about it all. By the end of the book, I like and even admire Burroughs. At the same time, it was depressing. I guess that I don't have anything all that profound to say about this book, only that I enjoyed it.