Augusten Burroughs Is A Moron: A Series

"I'm a complete and total fuckup. Why is exactly why I am equipped to write this book and tell you how to live" - Augusten Burroughs.

I enjoyed his series of books about his fucking up and his crazy family, embellished or no, but when he goes out of area, he looks like an idiot. The book starts off fine with an ancedote about that annoying SMILE! BE POSITIVE! person who you always meet (He meets his on an elevator) and how afrimations are bullshit. Basic stuff, but amusing enough. The How to Find Love chapter is amusing as well, but in a more idiotic way. There's a bunch of blather about how most people stay within a six mile radius. I'm not seeing how going to the bank on the other side of town will help me find love. I think that this is a case of assuming that people are all the same as you. When I go to the grocery store on the other end of the city, the same thing happens that happens in the grocery store in my neighborhood- I buy some groceries and go home. I'm sure Augusten strikes up life long friendships, booty calls, and job interviews everywhere he goes. Not being that person, the whole thing confuses me. In fact, I think this whole chapter could be condensed into "I got nothing. Maybe you have weird teeth or need to deeply accept your own soul. Whatever.'

The Fat and Thin chapters are also stupid(you may be noticing a theme here). The fat chapter is stupid in a boring 'You'd be thin if you wanted it enough, and weren't worried about being hotter than your sister" way. Oddly enough, he doesn't talk about brass tack issues such as food is avaliable and delicious and activity is harder to fit in without actual planning leading to fatness. The thin chapter is really stupid, since he speaks directly to anorexics, which is intensely outside of his area, and possibly a bit dangerous.

I'm OK with him dealing out the thinness is really a metaphor for what you truly want in life crap to folks who want to lose ten pounds, but when we get into anorexia, and his theories about it, I want him to sit down, shut up, and realize his claim to fame is being a kid with a fucked up family and being drunk. No matter how much you think anorexia is about control, and are shocked shocked that they are in HOSPITALS with RULES, there's no need for the BS about throwing your anorexic daughter out of the house with only a credit card. I'm not actually afraid that someone will try this (much). It's just the sort of thing that is too stupid even to post on twitter, let alone in a book. The reason I read a book is to read something with better quality control than the crap I read on twitter, OK?

The next chapters will be self pity, confidence and how to fail.