Monday, June 12, 2017

This Is How We Do It

This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. by Augusten Burroughs
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't know this was going to be so self-helpy. I didn't know what to expect, to be honest. I just knew that a lot of my Goodreads friends were reading and mostly loving Augusten Burroughs' books, so I thought I'd give one a shot.

If I had to pinpoint my notions of what I was about to get into, I guess I was expecting something more akin to David Sedaris, but with a sharper edge and less humor. I read This Is How (let's just skip that ridiculously long subtitle) and, while I'm not sure the edge was much sharper, I did get less humor. It was replaced with a self-help directive.

We are going to fucking fix you, is This Is How's message. Sometimes it's almost shouted, but generally it's spoken in a calm, collected and sensible tone. Direct and to the point. It's not Sedaris-memoir, it's more like autobio-when-necessary-to-make-my-point.

No, not everything herein is going to work for you and your problems. Most of the time I felt like Augusten Burroughs hit the nail on the head. Every once in a while he smacked the board. Hey, he's only human. Hell, if he were perfect and had all the answers I'd call him something like New Jesus and begin collecting members for my cult.



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