Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs
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Book Reviews of Magical Thinking: True Stories
Book Review: Burroughs Fanclub
Summary: 3 Stars
Although I am a complete Burroughs fan I will admit that this is not the top of his work. Please begin your Burroughs adventure with `Running with Scissors'. You will never regret that choice. After you appreciate what he is about you can come back to this book. This book lacks the draw of the other and is likely to not be found very enjoyable to the reader who is not familiar with his style or sense of humor. Burroughs will remind many of David Sedaris. Although, I believe there are distinct differences between their writings, it is probably a good measure to assume that if you have enjoyed one you will enjoy the other.Book Review: Interesting stories from Augusten
Summary: 3 Stars
This is my 4th Burroughs novel, and although I have loved his other books, this one did not hold my attention as much. My favorite so far has been Running With Scissors...it was hard to put that one down. This one just sort of had a good story every now and then. The only ones I actually were interested in were the one about the housekeeper and the telemarketer. I just found myself saying, "So what?" to a lot of the stories. I think Burroughs' life is extremely interesting; however, I guess I enjoy an actual novel instead of the random stories / chapters on different things.Book Review: Snap out of the spell
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm sick to death of Augusten Burroughs. Perhaps the most bizarre product of the literary fad that is memoir, Burroughs is the memoirist famous for being, well, a memoirist. Time was you had to do something interesting for people to want to read about you. Now you can apparently be interesting just because you say you are. I am at a loss to account for Burroughs' appeal (unless of course his magical thinking really has prevailed). His work - primarily that momentary curiosity, "Running With Scissors" - seems to be championed by semi-literate Gen-X closet conservatives flush with pride at having read their first book since grade school. And a Shocking Book, too. How edgy of them. How cool. The "true stories" collected here are, like most of Burroughs' work, apocryphal. He trades on the gimmick of supposedly embarrassing self-revelations - his victimhood, his alcoholism, his staggering selfishness, his standard-issue gay venom - but I don't buy it for a second. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of his work is fiction. And bad fiction at that. For example, a story like "The Rat/Thing" is simply bad fiction. Pretend it all really happened and it's not quite so bad because the shock value of true events slightly supplants the requirements of craft. But it's still a bad story. As are all the cloying recollections of life with various lovers which run like bad scenes from "Sex and The City". In story after story he squanders the opportunity to do anything worthwhile with perfectly good raw material, and instead just plays the smug queen. Even the better pieces here - such as the title story, and "I'm Gonna Live Forever" in which Burroughs recounts the perils of his burgeoning C-list celebrity - are distinguished not so much by what is being said as by the odd combination of neurosis and narcissism that seems to inform the style. That in itself might be interesting if it weren't so off-putting. I struggled through this. I laughed out loud twice in 252 pages. I smiled a few times, but mainly winced: not at the allegedly shocking content, but at the lame ham-fistedness of it all. Ultimately, Burroughs is just another mildly amusing gay guy who isn't Oscar Wilde. He isn't even David Sedaris. The central problem is that he has nothing to say - just a precocious way of saying it. If that blows your skirt up, fine. But count me out for the next round.Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
I loved Running With Scissors and Dry because Burroughs told his stories matter-of-factly, without asking for pity. They were stories that I thought said, "Horrible things happen, and you deal with them as best you can. Also, they can be pretty funny in retrospect." In Magical Thinking, he seems to have embraced his victimhood and his celebrity to the exclusion of all else.
Burroughs repeatedly admits to being mean, selfish, and obsessed with his own celebrity, but his other two books led me to believe he was also thoughtful, observant, and bright. This book proves otherwise. The stories don't ring especially true; it's clear that Burroughs just wants to keep his gravy train rolling and present the persona he's created for himself. This would be fine if he had anything of value to say about anyone or anything else, but his world is very small and encompasses only himself (and eventually his boyfriend and dog; the chapters about Dennis and the dog are the best in the book because they feel honest, and because Burroughs focuses on someone else for once).
I'm sorry that Burroughs embraced shallowness and victimhood. I hope he proves some day that he's more than that, maybe when the glow of celebrity fades a bit.
Book Review: Unexpected
Summary: 2 Stars
Alright... let say It was not what I was expecting but on the other hand I didn't knew the author and his background.
I read this book because first I found it in an old box belonging to the ex-wife of my husband and the cover looked cool and liked the title... Magical Thinking, ok I guess it will be funny little novel thing....
wow.... wrong!
The first one, about him as a kid (ok, fine but there was no cool point or twist)
then in most of the other stories, there's always something about his sexuality, sex this and sex that I didn't expect it... but went for it anyway...
still tho, no real twist (except the cab priest).
The white mouse one is pure animal cruelty, kinda freaky.
So, well, it's not the worst book ever but it's definitely not what the backcover is presenting or the title.