Lust & Wonder: A Memoir

Honest, Illuminating, Funny Memoir

Honest, forthcoming, and funny--this is Augusten Burroughs in a nutshell. I have laughed and cried over his books. This one might have made me tear up a little and chuckle a bit. It's not rip-roaring funny or horribly sad--it's just Burroughs telling us about his demons and his partners' idiosyncrasies. I love it that he goes to all the private places Burroughs' fans want to visit. Yes, we visit his bedrooms and his therapist's office. We get to be voyeurs and I love this. He doesn't write memoirs and fill them with extraneous information because he has a shortage of personal thoughts to convey. We get to go behind closed doors and find out just why past relationships failed and why his present marriage is a good one. The only thing that bored me a little was some of the details of his online shopping addiction. All those jewels! I wanted to say, "Please get back to the people stories." But for the most part it's all interesting and enjoyable. His angst is here. We learn of his tendency to catastrophize. This topic went on a little too long for me! I don't always give five stars unless I can say I relished every single word of the book, but in this case I had to give in and give him the best grade because the good stuff is just so good, IMO. Read more