16 January 2013

[Review] This is How; Augusten Burroughs

This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.

Release Date: May 8, 2012 
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Format: eboook
Summary from Goodreads:
If you're fat and fail every diet, if you're thin but can't get thin enough, if you lose your job, if your child dies, if you are diagnosed with cancer, if you always end up with exactly the wrong kind of person, if you always end up alone, if you can't get over the past, if your parents are insane and ruining your life, if you really and truly wish you were dead, if you feel like it's your destiny to be a star, if you believe life has a grudge against you, if you don't want to have sex with your spouse and don't know why, if you feel so ashamed, if you're lost in life. If you have ever wondered, How am I supposed to survive this?

This is How.

What I thought:
Um. I, well. *sigh* I really hate not liking books by authors I really love, but I just didn’t really like this. In fact, I stopped reading it about a 1/4 of the way through, and intended to give up, and then picked it up again to give it one more shot. Basically, the whole book was very hit-or-miss.
The book is broken up in to How To sections, like “How to be fat” “How to be skinny” “How to be sick” “How to deal with death” and so on. Some of them were funny, some of them were sad, some of them seemed actually helpful… I just felt like there wasn’t much direction at all in this book. Like, I got the impression that Burroughs wanted to write a whole bunch of different types of books and couldn’t decide which one this was?
I don’t know. I’m sorry, Augusten, man. I love everything else, but this just didn’t do it for me.
Read this if: you like self help books? If you don’t mind a lack of direction? If you’re a dedicated fan and feel bad skipping one of the collection?

Out of 5: 2/5

This is book 4/120 for 2013

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