"Laughter on the road to sobriety...for aficionados of outrageous black comedy...more earnest than his previous hit, partly because its subjects include alcoholism...In Mr. Burroughs' universe, this drug problem qualifies -and works- as comic relief...entertainingly sly...These are no laughing matters, but Mr. Burroughs remains adept at mixing comedy and calamity."
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Dry is more than a heartbreaking tale; it's a heroic one. As with its predecessor, we finish the book amazed not only that Burroughs can write so brilliantly, but that he's even alive."
- People

"Burroughs might seem to be pushing his luck in the self-revelation stakes, but he succeeds...consumed with tension...[a] wrenching, edifying journey...with the added benefit of being really entertaining."
- The New York Times Book Review

"Sobriety is a tough sell...Even on well-traveled territory, Burroughs has a knack for quirky, distinctive detail...In the end, what makes "Dry" juicy enough to hold us rapt is not sordid debauchery but the clarity with which Burroughs etches the perilously thin line between control and oblivion. Burroughs draws the cliff so eloquently that we're right there with him when he starts flirting with the brink...And "Dry" is nothing if not well constructed. One day at a time, Burroughs builds a deliberate but compelling story, lining up the shots for us until we have no choice but to knock each one back and then turn the page for the next."
- San Francisco Chronicle

"Memoir fever rages in publishing circles. But some people have more interesting lives than others. Burroughs writes books that suggest precisely that...Burroughs burst through all those dreary memoirs with his equal parts hilarious and horrifying 2002 tale, Running With Scissors...Dry is a deeper book than Scissors, revealing Burroughs to be a more accomplished writer, creating scenes of real power..."
- Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

"In last year's improbably hilarious best seller Running with Scissors, Burroughs told the story of his decidedly unconventional adolescence...Dry is the story of what happened next, and it's no less bizarre...Beneath the quick-flowing, funny-sad surface of Burroughs' prose lurks considerable complexity: wherever he goes, whatever he's doing, you can feel how badly he wants to drink -as well as the sadness from which that desire comes and the courage it takes to make the sadness so funny, all at the same time. If anything, Dry is even more compelling than Burroughs' first outing, if only because the material is less rich: he is less the walking quirk this time and more just a brave, funny, unhappy human being."
- Lev Grossman, TIME

"There is a long tradition of advertising copywriters who become authors of cultural significance, from Carl Sandburg to Don DiLillo to Fay Weldon to Salman Rushdie. A new addition must be Augusten Burroughs, who first emerged with 2000's satirical novel, Sellevision and more spectacularly with (2002's) best-selling Running with Scissors...Burroughs' new autobiography, Dry, offers an even more complex moral ambiguity. Exploring the alcoholism that threatens to derail his success as a hotshot young New York adman, he is no longer victim, but villain, so in thrall with booze that he shirks work and allows his best friend, whom he dubs Pighead, to face the terrifying specter of AIDS alone, ignoring his calls in favor of nights getting wasted with strangers...Dry is a stylish memoir about a messy life. Burroughs astutely links alcoholism and advertising, both of which require an ability to romanticize emptiness. Given that a 30-second ad consists of approximately 70 words, relentlessly honed, it's little surprise that Burroughs' prose, like Weldon's, has focus and economy...as the story progresses, it becomes harder to read about the self-destructiveness of the author's alcoholism, placed next to the ravages of AIDS, without wanting to shake him. Thankfully, Burroughs shakes himself (and the book) just in time."
- Entertainment Weekly

"A frank, shockingly hilarious memoir of booze, family loss, and victory. Augusten Burroughs writes in such a disarming, lively voice that readers can't help but feel they've just found a new friend, one who's refreshingly frank and eager to draw us into his life. Burroughs -whose first book, Running with Scissors, chronicled a spectacularly screwy childhood- is a gripping storyteller, the sort of talker who'd have everyone at a dinner party enthralled. But his most important asset, given the harrowing struggle his new book, Dry (St. Martin's) records, is a sense of humor that rarely deserts him. At one point in Burroughs' story, a therapist who's helping him confront his alcoholism says that she sees him as one of those people who can step back from their life, step back from the play, and watch the performance... And how! Humor, after all, is the ability to find enough distance to see the situation from a new perspective. Who would ever expect to laugh so hard while reading a tale with so much pain in it? Burroughs flees connection with others, destroys his advertising career, and is pushed into rehab. He begins to acknowledge the feelings he's been obscuring, confront the legacy of a difficult family, and take responsibility for his own life. But the demons of self-destruction are tenacious, and it takes him hitting rock bottom -and the heartbreaking death of Pighead, a beloved friend whom Burroughs hasn't been emotionally clear enough to commit to- to bring him to sobriety. All along the way, this writer's warmth, honesty and irreverence win our allegiance. It's a mark of the depth and wholeness of the person who emerges here that we not only laugh with him but wind up caring deeply as well. Dry will make readers glad to have Augusten Burroughs in the world, and eager for more.
- O The Oprah Magazine

"Autobiographical tell-alls -I was a crack addict, I was anorexic, I was a drunk, I was an asshole- are all the rage. The best by far is Augusten Burroughs' Dry: A memoir, a brilliant, insightful and fabulously funny book that charts his road to sobriety...Dry catches the reader off guard on every page, challenging what we've come to expect from rehab literature."
- Paper magazine

"I was prepared to loathe "Running With Scissors" author Augusten Burroughs' follow-up memoir, "Dry." One memoir by a no-name dysfunction-of-the-month author is one thing. Two is grounds for the revocation of your Whiner's Anonymous membership card. And aren't there already 40,000 other perfectly good my-life-as-it-spiraled-down-into-a-bottle books already? The answer to that last question is yes, but I was way wrong about all my other prejudices against "Dry." When you are as self-deprecatingly funny and write as vividly and unpretentiously as Burroughs, well, I guess that's free rein to write 100 memoirs - and bring them on immediately."
- Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

"Augusten Burroughs is a wickedly good writer...Dry is the second part of Burroughs' chronicle of his -shall we say- unusual life...a brutally honest view of the twisted culture that can thrive in an ad agency... When he isn't laying bare the ad world's rather seamy underbelly, Burroughs does a fine job of portraying his difficult life as a recovering alcoholic. All in all, Dry is a great read. Grade: A"
- Chicago Sun-Times

"Burroughs is a brilliant writer -wickedly funny, painfully honest, and uber-cool. Without cheapening the hard work and commitment recovery requires, he allows the wry hilarity of his experience to shine brighter than the pain and darkness. I haven't read anything this sharp, hip, or honest in my life. Count me as a lifelong fan of this courageous writer."
- Elle (Reader's Prize winner for June)

"Like the alcohol he so enjoys, Burroughs' story of getting dry will go straight into your bloodstream and leave you buzzing, exhilarated, and wiped out. Burroughs is a malcontented, successful advertising copywriter: in his 20s, gay, living in Manhattan, and owner of a childhood that the word "nightmare" doesn't even begin to cover (as described in Running With Scissors, 2002). Burroughs is an alcoholic, a true-blue, two-fisted, drink-till-you-see-the-spiders-on-the-wall alcoholic. He is not, as he would say, the man you'd want operating the cotton gin-he is funny and dark. This is his story of trying to keep the next drink from coming. Declaring he's "vain and shallow"-"If I were straight, I am certain I would be one of those guys who goes to wet T-shirt contests and votes with great enthusiasm"-he's quick to strike a pose to admire his silhouette; but in his own half-mad way, he's an original, a step aslant of the cutting edge, and wonderfully capable of expressing the miseries and sublimities of detox. It starts with his agreement-dry out, or get fired-to enter rehab; he chooses a gay clinic in Minnesota: "a rehab hospital run by fags will be hip. Plus there's the possibility of good music and sex." Reality quickly intrudes when the clinic staff checks him for cologne ("Oh, you'd be surprised by the things alcoholics will try and sneak in here to drink") and proceeds along a circuitous path thereafter, with plenty of opportunities for cliffhanging-bad decisions in his love life; a co-worker trying to sabotage his efforts to reform; AA abandonment; his best friend's death; the "alcoholic terrorist" in his head-weaving in and out of gallows humor and a honed starkness. In the end, it's all up to Burroughs, and to give the end away would be criminal, for this memoir operates on a high level of involvement and suspense. Didn't think you'd ever feel even an ounce of sympathy for -let alone root for- a drunken adman, did you? Meet Mr. Burroughs."
- KirkusReviews (starred)

"Burroughs has a knack for ending up in depraved situations and a vibrant talent for writing about them....readers accustomed to his heady cocktail of fizzy humor and epiphanic poignancy won't be disappointed."
- Publisher's Weekly