"One of the most compelling and screamingly funny voices of the new century belongs to Augusten Burroughs...Burroughs is blessed with an offbeat perspective and a viciously uncensored wit, and he can write entertainingly about the most minor experiences: buying an iron at Kmart; house hunting; firing the world's greediest cleaning lady; stepping on the foot of a baby, making her wail with misery, then skulking off...Perhaps it is Burroughs' versatility he can write about love without being cloying, he can describe being an alcoholic without being boring, he can write about his demented family without self-pity that makes him such a delight to read."
- USA TODAY

Augusten Burroughs shows why he is the memoirist-of-the-moment with his harrowing and laugh-out-loud new essay collection, Magical Thinking."
- Vanity Fair

(R)uthlessly funny...deliciously perverse...Part of Burroughs' charm is his ability to see the melodramatic possibilities in every moment and to make harsh judgments about himself as well as others...he extracts something funny from every shred of his own warped experience. Magical Thinking indeed (Four out of four stars).
- People

"Sports nuts have Dave Barry, Midwesterners have Garrison Keillor, and the rest of us -gay guys, misfits, those with horrific childhoods - have Burroughs. We cherish him. And he, perhaps inadvertently, fosters codependency by sharing his every embarrassing thought. But something miraculous has happened in Burroughs' fourth book - he's happy...Burroughs is still endearingly neurotic and self-centered, lobbing tart throwaways at his dating prospects ("A spiritual gay man simply means he has a yin/yang tattoo on his ass, which you can be sure has had electrolysis") and Ernest Hemingway ("The only Hemingway I've ever been remotely interested in is Mariel"). Thankfully, there's one trait he retains from his alcohol-hazed advertising days: He hooks you into a story better than anybody. A-"
- Entertainment Weekly

"Every so often a "writer's writer" pops up and deliciously ambushes readers - writers like David Sedaris, Larry Brown and Frank McCourt. A writer's writer is one who not only continuously produces prose that sings, but whose voice is so separate and distinct, whose message and manner of delivery is so raw, so true, so finely tuned, that it's impossible to put it down...Augusten Burroughs deserves membership to this inner circle...Magical Thinking is a savory delivery of a collection of Burroughs' true-life, self-deprecating stories that are, at once, hysterical, sharp, poignant and political...he leaves nothing out, forcing readers to sit down, shut up and listen...Burroughs infuses his stories with a "living in his head" way of walking through a life marked by familial abandonment, alcoholism, and no education, delivering juicy tales...His observations are razor-sharp...Like Burroughs' memoir of his raised-by-a-pedophile/psychiatrist childhood, Running With Scissors, and his second memoir about getting sober, Dry, Magical Thinking is finely-honed and addicting. Burroughs offers himself up as art that illuminates all that is absurd and outrageous - yet he does so lovingly, morphing his work to appear as every vulnerable person's personal read. He reaches into his audience, grabs its attention and then delivers the moral without any hint that that's what he's doing...To write this way is heroic. To do so repeatedly is miraculous. Burroughs deserves to be on the top shelf of any writer's - or reader's - bookshelf."
- Denver Rocky Mountain News

Burroughs' new book, Magical Thinking, features more of the author's delightfully wacko humor and offers up even more of his twisted yet insightful takes on the modern world...Burroughs is sliding into David Sedaris territory. He, like Sedaris, could end up producing book after book of such off-kilter tales. But Burroughs is edgier than his NPR-endorsed competitor. His stories have more danger; they take more risks and contain more surprises...this new material is deeply satisfying, full of both gleeful one-liners and shocking instances of profound wisdom...There are few writers as outrageously magical or as surprisingly thoughtful as Augusten Burroughs."
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Here's what happens when you read an Augusten Burroughs memoir: You smirk, you laugh, your jaw drops in disbelief and then you go hug your parents if they were even remotely nice to you... What makes Burroughs a literary favorite - right up there with humorists David Sedaris and Laurie Notaro - is that between horrifying tales of excess and self-destruction, he makes you chuckle. And "Magical Thinking: True Stories" is no exception... Burroughs' deft approach to weaving the wildly absurd and strangely touching moments of his life into sharp literary snacks makes for an entertaining afternoon on the couch, memoir in hand. Yet, it's not all fun and games. Between stories about strange dental work and feeling like the kidnapped heir to the Vanderbilt fortune, Burroughs' scissor-sharp humor sometimes can feel a bit mean. But just when you want to throw the book aside and yell, "Jerk!," Burroughs reels you back in with just enough sensitivity to keep you going. Still, the real pull of Burroughs' work is its honesty, the bizarre way this man thinks and the tales he tells. Not everyone is comfortable confessing that they've had a fling with a priest and an undertaker and killed a little white mouse in the bathtub by drowning it... Burroughs fans will not be disappointed. "Magical Thinking" is a funny/sad look at Burroughs' unique experiences, made fascinating by his sharp writing and self-deprecation."
- Boston Herald

"Warning: This book - and so, to an extent, this review - contains vulgar language, discussions of gay sex, darkly cynical humor and graphic descriptions of killing a "rat/thing" in a bathtub. Reader discretion is advised. Yet reader attention is strongly encouraged, because this book also contains riveting descriptions, wise commentary and touching observations about the nature of family and love...Some have compared him with David Sedaris - both gay, control-freaky, members of odd families and brilliant observers. But where Sedaris embraces his fey elfin side, Burroughs revels in revealing his darker inner goblins. The book takes him from childhood as a consummate outsider to a surprisingly secure manhood...In "The Rat/Thing," at once the book's most entertaining and sickening story, a rodent invades his personal bathtub space. The panicky Burroughs sprays it with a can of Raid and tries everything short of a napalm drop to kill it. It costs him his equanimity and a $700 pair of Armani glasses, but man conquers beast. Poor beast...In "Debby's Requirements," he hires a demented, avaricious - and very short - cleaning lady who charges outrageous fees and only cleans as high as she can reach. We are left feeling he should have used the Raid on her...Things get considerably lighter and brighter, yet remain amusing, when he meets Dennis, who becomes the love of his life. These are tales of domesticity and dogs, tiffs and tenderness, to which anyone who's ever coupled up will relate. Here is the sweetness that perfectly offsets the cynical in Burroughs' thinking, and it truly is magical."
- The Hartford Courant

"Fate gave Augusten Burroughs a lot to work with in the memories-of-dysfunction department...Continuing along this career path (though he has also written a novel, "Sellevision"), he must keep on recalling loony escapades and presenting them in acerbic, self-referential fashion...Some of the stories work wickedly...comically self-deprecating...indicative of the entertaining misanthropy that is Mr. Burroughs' strongest suit...The best parts of "Magical Thinking" are similarly mean-spirited...Mirror-gazing, both actual and emotional, remains his practice. And it is still what he does best as a writer..."
- The New York Times

Augusten Burroughs' new collection speaks to the devil in us all...As with fellow essayist David Sedaris, Burroughs writes about anything that his wonderfully warped mind desires...the earlier parts of this collection that deal with this childhood suggest the crowd-pleasing antics of Scissors, while the middle and later essays about his adult life tend to be closer in tone to Dry..."
- Time Out New York

"Like fellow essayists David Sedaris and Jonathan Ames, Burroughs possesses a mind-set best described as superlatively disturbed. Following his two unnerving best-sellers, Running with Scissors (2002) and Dry (2003), the self-described "alcoholic, high-school dropout raised in a cult by a crazy psychiatrist" unleashes a brand-new collection of deliciously lurid true tales...brimming with bawdy language and bodily fluids, this volume by a man "made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions," offers an irresistible display of sanity hanging by a thread." Starred review.
- Booklist

"Like Dry and Running with Scissors, this collection showcases Burroughs' sharp, funny and sometimes brilliant writing...Burroughs' smooth prose, peppered with charming and awkward moments, is occasionally reminiscent of David Sedaris and David Rakoff. But he's no imitator of those essayists. Rather, Burroughs ambles toward insight in a continual state of self-examination and just happens to have peculiar adventures along the way."
- Publisher's Weekly

"The cheerfully self-obsessed Burroughs is a sharp and unabashed monologist, connecting with readers through sizzling humor and the profoundly accurate eye for absurdity he showcased so adeptly in his bestselling memoirs Running With Scissors and Dry...Magical Thinking excels most, though, in Burroughs' sweet descriptions of falling in love and realizing, with a start, that he's growing up and settling down. Often giddily profane, Burroughs also is capable of dizzying tenderness, and his writing on this subject resonates an appealing hope...The journeys in (this collection) are funny and warm, imaginative and irresistible, and you don't even need a passport to go along."
- The Miami Herald

"Dementedly original and unstoppable, Burroughs deserves a shelf all to himself...."
- Kirkus

With titles such as "Transfixed by Transsexuals,"I Dated an Undertaker,"Ass Burger" and others not fit to mention here, the stories mostly follow Burroughs' now-established style of examining the travails of his life through a lens of sardonic wonderment. He destroys his bathtub trying to rid his apartment of a rodent in "The Rat/Thing," details horrific oral surgery in "Roof Work," and avenges his crooked housekeeper's grift in "Debby's Requirements."... But just when Burroughs seems the most unpleasant -- say, when he stands on the hand of a baby in a store and finds detached amusement in it in "I Kid You Not" -- the part of himself that is outside looking in takes over and he skewers his own shallowness before the reader has a chance to. Listen, he seems to be saying, I know I'm an egotistical, self-involved wreck, so let's all enjoy the laugh on me... he's still a funny, sharp writer and "Magical Thinking" reads breezily along..."
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, St. Paul)

"Gay, self-absorbed and coruscatingly funny, Burroughs won fame for Running with Scissors and Dry, both peculiar, raunchy and endearing memoirs, one of his sexually abused childhood and the other of his adult alcoholism. He is an outrageously addictive personality in both senses of the term, a disturbed writer who entertains with his inner pain..."Magical thinking" is the psychological term for hoping that stepping on a crack will break your mother's back, and it informs all these splendidly dark little essays, which range from a sexual encounter in a funeral parlor to drowning a mouse in the bathtub."
- Chicago Sun Times

"Sit back and get uncomfortable because Augusten Burroughs has a new memoir, "Magical Thinking." Burroughs' peer group -- which includes such charmingly caustic, ironic and dipped-in-sarcasm essayists as David Sedaris, Jonathan Ames and David Rakoff -- will never possess Burroughs' ability to endear while simultaneously causing one's skin to crawl...Burroughs' greatest gift as a writer, aside from clean prose that's as economical as it is clever, might be that he doesn't just shuffle or scurry down paths rarely, if ever, taken by the rest of us, but owns them like the Barbizon School of Modeling graduate that he is...with "Magical Thinking" Burroughs taps back into the same vein that produced the off-kilter funhouse of a childhood in "Running With Scissors." This time, he's all grown up and the comedy is even darker...As creepy and unacceptable as many of Burroughs' stories are, he's so good with the turn of a phrase or nailing down an entire subculture with one sentence that readers will nod their heads in recognition...And that's really the secret of Burroughs' success. He can sound so lucid, charming and self-actualized that by the time things ride off the rails, you're right there in the front seat, laughing with the map open on your lap, when all you intended to do was offer directions to the nearest mental-health professional, then slowly back away."
- The Oregonian

"(F)unny, edgy essays drawn from a life way less than ordinary. Raise your hand if you've ever been cast in elementary school for a Tang commercial only to be left on the cutting-room floor, drowned a rat in your bathtub, had the roof of your mouth splayed open by a dentist on a routine visit, or had a gay fling with an undertaker in the same viewing room where Rose Kennedy's wake took place...What keeps us laughing and turning the pages even as we shudder at the thought of these experiences is Burroughs' unflagging humor, relentless optimism and endearingly self-deprecating style."
- BookPage

"Memoirs can make painful reading for two reasons. At one extreme is the puff piece that buries all its author's warts under a wad of gooey platitudes. At the other is the cathartic spew, a squirming mess brought on by the writer's desire to publicly air his underpants, no matter how unsavory the stains. The first is insipid. The second comes across as pleading: Here I am, naked, with all my faults exposed. Know me. Sympathize with me. Love me. Which, of course, is fair grounds for tossing it in the shredder...Augusten Burroughs is the sort of writer who likes to tell embarrassing stories about himself, but he's not begging for a group hug. Wit, and a disdain for self pity, is what distinguished his recollections of an appalling childhood and grown-up alcoholism in his previous two memoirs, Running with Scissors and Dry. Here's a man who's capable of lines like, "Catholic priests have given me some of the best blow jobs of my life." That's why Entertainment Weekly placed him 15th on its list of America's 25 funniest people...Burroughs' latest, Magical Thinking, is a collection of autobiographical essays in the tradition of David Sedaris. Like Sedaris, Burroughs makes much of his daily traumas: the mouse in the bathtub, the crappy trip to Key West, sex in the funeral parlor where Rose Kennedy once lay in state. Burroughs uses stories like these to flaunt his talents as a wag. So we get him visiting the Kentucky Derby or taking steroids for cosmetic purposes. The best piece in the collection is about his cleaning lady, an evil dwarf who bilked him out of thousands of dollars and never scrubbed above a certain height. But the pleasure in reading Burroughs is less in his eye for the weird than in his ear for a clever sentence. He spent most of his professional life as an advertising writer, and his deftness with a barb flashes through in lines like, "I can't stand spiritual gay men. They annoy me more than flavored coffees. A spiritual gay man simply means he has a yin/yang tattoo on his ass, which you can be sure has had electrolysis." ...in most of the book he's doing things like relishing the death of a bitchy boss or describing a giant sphincter lip-synching the words to the Dr. Pepper jingle. It's in dire moments like those that Burroughs sinks to a queasy greatness."
- Boston Magazine

"This is a collection of essays from a more mature Burroughs, but one who is still wild, sad, funny, tender and frightening...Burroughs, a self-made anthropologist whose subject is his own life, also writes about his fears and what lurks in the darker corners of his head...When you see a new book with Augusten Burroughs' name on the cover you can't help but think, "Oh Lord, now what?" But it really doesn't matter what he writes about. It's all about the journey. Do go along. Just be sure to pack some tissues for the laughing and the crying."
- The Seattle Times

"Augusten Burroughs' new memoir, "Magical Thinking," explodes like a Chinese rocket in the face of the unsuspecting reader...Open the book anywhere, and chances are good you'll be hooting, if not grinning, by the end of a chapter. It isn't a matter of style so much as what he is saying and how he is saying it. There is a refreshing insouciance throughout that invites the reader along on his travels and travails..."Magical Thinking" is a book brimming with brio and outrageous fun. Some of it is reflective, but it is a very fast read. As a writer, Burroughs is a national treasure whose ideas are delightful to read. It is doubtful that this book will ever turn up on an approved academic reading list, but an adventurous professor could test his students' sense of humor. He just is not in the same league with similar writers. David Sedaris, who like Burroughs is happily gay, writes much differently. But if you haven't experienced Burroughs yet, give this collection a try."
- Denver Post

"Burroughs getting fuzzy-kitten cute? Well, withhold your collective "awwws" because Burroughs still exists in a screwy world, and he's not about to lose his edgy view of it. While he may spend his evening knitting by the hearth with his trusty Schnauzer by his side, by day, Burroughs can still find irony in, say, gay people who want to have kids, why the Amish eschew zippers and taking it all out on telemarketers. Even wallowing in happiness, Burroughs keeps his scissors sharpened."
- San Francisco Chronicle