This was the book that got me interested in reading nonfiction, when I first read it in early high school. Augusten Burroughs's life is wild, intricately weird, and occasionally heartbreaking. I'm glad he shared what became of the people who were important to him. Burroughs uses deceptively descriptive language that makes the scenes he describes real to the reader. The image of his mother in a bath tub with the bubbles stained pink with her blood is burned into my mind's eye. It's interesting reading this book after having visited Massachusetts. It's jarring to recognize landmarks mentioned in a second read through of the book when I hadn't recognized in the first.

There are occasional, uncomfortable moments of ableism in which the names of disabilities are used in describing undesirable mannerisms.