if you didn’t know already (you should have), augusten’s newest book titled “you’d better not cry” is out. it’s a book of warm christmas memories sitting by the fire with his loving parents, and then later in life living in manhattan taking the city by storm surrounded by people that were warm and compassionate, much like an old “friends” episode.
HA! could you tell i was totally making all that up? could you tell b/c you’ve read augusten and you KNOW that man has suffered more than his share of crazy?
i just finished the book this morning and i absolutely did not want it to end. i hate to write something like “he’s grown beyond his original writing capacity at super sonic speed”. to write that, sounds like i’m a little on the pretentious side and like i know ANYTHING about good writing. (i assure you, i do not.)
i don’t know how else to word it but augusten’s writing has become grown into something EVEN GREATER THAN I THOUGHT POSSIBLE FROM HIM. this book actually stopped me in my mental tracks and i was forced to ponder the statements on a higher plane than i previously thought possible.
that last part, that’s a little over done isn’t it? yeah, i can be like that about augusten.
following are a few teasers from you better not cry, i hope it makes you rush out and buy the book. buy them as gifts for your friends and families b/c we all know that crazy runs in your family too.
i started crying at the dedication page (i fall into that second one, not the australia one).
“this book is dedicated to the people of australia who lost everything there is to lose in the february fires of 2009.
and to everyone who still holds their breath to listen for the sound of distant sleigh bells in the sky.”
on his confusion about santa claus and jesus being the same person,
“when the abominable snowman had cornered rudolph in the glittering ice cave, i watched in rapt silence, “jesus where are you? help them! get a gun jesus, get a gun!”
describing the morning in which his grandparents were arriving for christmas,
“six moons later i was standing in the kitchen about to eat a breakfast of fresh cake batter when the doorbell rang.”
on how he began eating the life size santa his grandparents brought with them,
“somehow, i understood that what i was doing was incredibly thrilling and must, therefore, be incredibly wrong.”
“with santa’s lips in my mouth, i bit down. i bit down hard. his lips came off right in my mouth. shocked and unsure of what to do now that i had santa’s lips entirely in my mouth instinct took over and i started to chew.”
after having to have his stomach pumped,
“i’d ruined not only christmas, but any chance i ever had of getting into heaven.”
describing his brother’s light touch with the christmas tree after coming over to help with the terrible flood in their new house,
“it was almost as if my grandmother had come to spend christmas with us, dressed in her very best outfit and wearing her favorite jewelry—her charm bracelet, her gold and jade rings—and we’d gone and beaten the hell out of her then tossed her broken body into snowbank.”
after the terrible flood part,
“this would be our lump of coal and reindeer-hit-by-car sandwiches christmas. just exactly like all the motherfucking rest of them.”
"even worse, now i knew things could happen in the night. harm could reach you no matter how insulated you thought you were. it could change you. it could take."
that last one really stuck in my jaw. or is it craw? nevertheless i’ve recently experienced this “harm could reach you no matter how insulated you thought you were”.
boy howdy has harm been visiting lately. thank god for the internet and books to keep me distracted.
Posted by leah 
Posted by leah 
Posted by leah 
