Running with Scissors (pg. 1-69)

Summary

Throughout the first few page we are introduced to Augusten, his mother named Deirdre, his father named Norman, his mother's psychiatrist Dr. Finch, and the Finch family. Augusten is introduced as your ab-normal type of boy. Everything has to be perfect in his eyes or he wont be happy. He goes through a series of trauma while he's living in the woods and his mother and father was still together. The mother loved to write poems and was hoping that one day one of her poems would be published in The New Yorker. His father, a professor with knee pain, is an alcoholic who dislikes his wife. Augusten has to put up with the fights and the pain, though he seems not to mind it's effecting him big time. As a result of his parents' divorce, Augusten had to stay with Dr. Finch because his mother was unstaple at the time and his father was trying to kill them. Augusten, the neat freak, has to stay in the messy house with roaches in the kitchen, but a messy house is going to be the least of his problems as he starts to spend more and more time with the Finche's.

Quote

"My umbilical cord is still attached and she's pulling at it" (Burroughs 2).

Reaction

So far the memoir has already taken me in a rollercoaster not knowing what spin I'm going to take next. It almost feels like I can reach out to little Augusten and give him a hug that he's been needing, a hug the not even his mother can give me. As I read I see a little boy not knowing what his purpose in the world is. The traumatizing fights that he witnessed only added to his loneliness because he was caught in the middle of it, he was the one who had to walk over to his father and make sure that he was still breathing. Augusten seems like a boy who was born in the wrong family. He was literally handed off to another family who he had nothing in common with and he felt like he was somewhere he didn't belong. Augusten has already gone through alot of changes in his life. His parents got divorced, his moved to a new home, and he goes to a new school (which he never attends). I believe that as the story goes on Augusten will find who he really is and make a mark in the the life of the people who knew him.