Title: Possible Side Effects
Author: Augusten Burroughs
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Year: 2006
Genre: Essay/memoir
291 pages
An enjoyable enough collection of essays by the author of Running with Scissors and Dry. None of these pieces appears to have been published in a magazine before this anthology, and editing may have helped some of them. The quality varies, with many pieces relying on a sort of weak rim-shot punchline. Some pieces read like out-takes from Running with Scissors. As compared to both Dry andMagical Thinking, the "Augusten" narrator is not as snippy and cruel in this collection. His own vulnerability and anxiety are more on display, and though the constant reitterations of "I'm an alcoholic" are wearing, they are at least accurate and about Augusten's appraisal of himself, not about the failings of others.
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