Magical Thinking By Augusten Burroughs By Halah on Feb 15, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

After reading Swallows of Kabul and then Lucky back-to-back, I needed something a little less heavy to read. I decided I would try Magical Thinking on for size. The USA Today is quoted right on the cover using the terms "compelling" and "screamingly funny."

The first page defines Magical Thinking as "A schizotypal personality disorder attributing to one's own actions something that had nothing to do with him or her and thus assuming that one has greater influence over events than is actually the case." It is apparent throughout every story that Burroughs suffers from this personality disorder.

About the first half of this books had me laughing out loud. Some of it was indeed "screamingly funny." The book starts off very strong with a story about Burroughs acting debut as a child, then blows through his adolescence and onto adulthood. This book did serve as a decent pick me up, but around the middle Burroughs started to lose me. Somewhere around the time he tried, through three examples, to explain why he believes that priests give the best blow jobs, is where I wasn't laughing so much. The book sort of slowly leads up to the more graphic encounters he describes, and I found that one story to be the most visual. It was just too close to reading pornography for me to enjoy the "humorous" parts, I guess.

As I continued reading though, Burroughs pulled me back in and by the end I was laughing out loud about old ladies and Dr. Pepper enemas. This book is definitely only good for those with a twisted sense of humor who can laugh at damn near anything. Burroughs vivid descriptions can make you laugh out loud or turn your stomach, depending on how you look at the world.