3rd Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs. St. Martain's Press, 2005. Genre: Non-Fiction Memoir

Magical Thinking is Augusten Burrough's third book about his life. Unlike his first two books Running with Scissors and Dry , Magical Thinking consists of several short essays about Augusten's life. At first they seem scattered with bits of pieces from his adulthood and childhood, but then they evolve into his adult life with stories about his job in advertisement and just about trying to live a normal life in New York. The essays also begin to chronicle his crazy dating life, and near the end his life with his life-partner Dennis.

"Augusten Burroughs's new collection speaks to the devil in us all... As with fellow essayist David Sedaris, Burroughs writes about anything that his wonderfully warped mind desires." - Time Out New York

Unlike Augusten's Running with Scissors which chronicles his very abnormal childhood and Dry which tells Augusten's story as a recovering alcoholic, which are both written with a straightforward storyline, Magical Thinking is written in short essays. Although this could have meant the book was choppy and had no sense of flow, this wasn't the case with this book. All the essays flowed really well and after the first couple sentences each essay made you fell like it was just another chapter in a regular book. Augusten's take on the world with a semi-pessimistic, eccentric feel, and his dry honest sense of humor make Magical Thinking another Augusten Burroughs classic. When Augusten writes he holds nothing back, making his work raw, funny, and addicting.

"But while all of this was happening, I was still home in my apartment with Dennis and our dog, Bentley, sitting at my computer and writing, like always. Nothing had changed except that I now gave interviews and posed for pictures which I hoped looked better than the actual me. I still didn't go to literary parties or art gallery openings. I didn't suddenly have a posse of fashionable friends with famous last names. I continued to wear the same dog hair-covered sweatpants around the house for two weeks at a time"(206).

When I was younger I had seen the film adaption of Running with Scissors and although I thought it was alright, I wasn't really into it. A couple years later I found the book that the film was based of off and instantly fell in love. Burroughs writes in a way that makes you say "I've felt that way before!". His work makes you laugh and draws you in and just leaves you wanting more. Although I was reluctant about reading a bunch of essays, I'm really glad I ended up picking this book as my ORB.
Also, Augusten's background inspires me. He grew up in western Massachusetts and his experiences in Running with Scissors occur ed in Northampton. During the last chapter in Scissors, Augusten even lived in South Hadley. And when he moved to New York at a young age with no formal education beyond middle school, he still managed to make a life from himself and become a famous author. It's been an old dream of mine to move to New York City and become a famous author, and after seeing that Burroughs could do it with all these setbacks it makes me feel like I can do it too.