This is How: Help for the Self

This is not another funny book by Augusten Burroughs. It is serious with some humor and taken from that perspective it is (insert superlative here). With this book Mr. Burroughs took the road less traveled and it works. You will recognize yourself in some of these scenarios even if you don't want to.

This was so great. Read it.

Augusten Burroughs is Brene Brown's shit talking older brother. He's examining much of the same issues but drawing from his own life experience involving abuse, alcoholism, suicide and the death of a loved one.

While he's a tad inconsistent when it comes to kids, and I'm still not sure how I feel about his fat chapters, he still gets the same pass as any self-help book. There comes no expectation of hitting it out of the park every time. And maybe he falters here because he's at his most compelling when he's drawing from his own life experience, and as a childless, average framed, gay man he's a bit out of his element talking about anorexia or losing a child.

Still, Augusten is a straight-talking, no-nonsense story teller and proves a welcome respite from the more airy, optimism indicative of the genre.