Finished "Running with Scissors"

- One minute read - 141 words

I didn’t like it.

It’s not to say that Augusten Bourroughs can’t put a pretty funny spin on growing up with a mentally unhinged family, getting adopted by said mother’s psychotherapist’s family, and having a boyfriend double his age (!), but the tragicomedy loses its Royal Tenenbaum’s “Hey life is surreal and filled with crazy people!” feel quickly and moves into that sick to the stomach feeling that comes when someone is so desperate for attention he doesn’t know he’s being raped.

I suppose I had this coming, I was biased by the film trailer which promised something zany, quirky, insane, but not quite horrid. I was expecting drug experimentation, yelling matches, New England prep-school ennui, but sadly, these were only fleeting themes and instead I read the particularly horrible tale of a very unfortunate boy leading a very tragic existence.