Running with Scissors

“Funny and rich with child’s eye details of adults who have gone off the rails."—The New York Times Book Review

“A hilarious and horrifying memoir.”—Los Angeles Times

“I just finished reading the most amazing book. Running with Scissors is hilarious, freaky-deaky, berserk, controlled, transcendent, touching, affectionate, vengeful, all-embracing . . . It makes a good run at blowing every other [memoir] out of the water.”—Carolyn See, The Washington Post

“The anecdotes can be flippant, and so insanely funny (quite literally), that the effect is that of a William Burroughs situation comedy.”—The New York Times

“Burroughs defies the ‘woe is me’ stigma of modern memoir with a raucous recounting of his loony teenage years.”—Entertainment Weekly

“I was reminded of Roald Dahl’s Boy and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Augusten Burroughs has produced a memoir that’s funny and sharp but also humane, as charming as it is revealing.”—Kurt Andersen, author of Turn of the Century

“A memoir that is both horrifying and mordantly funny.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Burroughs has memorialized his bizarre childhood showing off a dark wit that often rivals that of David Sedaris—while telling a true story that would make even Sedaris cringe.”—New York magazine

"Screamingly funny . . . In the end, the book celebrates Burroughs's resilient, upbeat spirit, which helps him surmount one of the weirder childhoods on record."—Deirdre Donahue, USA Today

"A lasting treasure, a gorgeously written time-life story destined to be cherished and quoted long after its last page is read . . . bravely stands as a life-affirming survival guide for all the misfits of the world."—The Tampa Tribune

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"It's gross, it's shocking and its humor is blacker than a thousand midnights . . . But this hilarious, provocative, and oddly touching book draws you into a bizarre world and keeps you rooting for its unusual narrator to survive, thrive, and break free."—The Hartford Courant

"Brutal, disturbing, and often wildly funny . . . a stirring testament to a boy's strength in an environment of unfathomable heartache and dysfunction."—The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

"A surreal and entertaining trip through a young life most readers will thank God wasn't theirs . . . Burroughs never lets his readers forget that stuck in the middle of all the madness is a confused boy."—The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

"Bound to please fans of dark humor . . . Burroughs's account, full of frightening and hilarious images, is an entertaining, moving tale of an unconventional 1980s coming of age. It could be the one book you remember reading this summer."—Ft. Worth Star Telegram

“Burroughs tempers the pathos with sharp riotous humor . . . Edgier, but reminiscent of Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, this is a survival story readers won’t forget.”—Booklist

"Beautifully written with a finely tuned sense of style and wit . . . This memoir of a nightmarish youth is both compulsively entertaining and tremendously provocative."—Publishers Weekly