This is how to disappoint your fans

I'm trying to find the right words to say what I think about Augusten Burrough's new book. To say I hate it isn't quite right.

It wasn't what I expected. It wasn't what I've come to love about Augusten. I didn't realize it was a self-help book rather than a memoir. Because his memoirs are what I know, what I love, and what I crave.

His advice, on the other hand, isn't what I'm looking for. It's not that I don't need it or don't appreciate it. It's just not what he does well. What he does well is tell wonderfully dark and hilarious stories about himself. Stories that are so rich that you think they're fictional. When you find out they're real, you almost don't want to believe it. You wonder how anybody could go through half the stuff he's been through, let alone all of it. But you take it in, you revel in it, and you end up wanting more.

I want no more of the current book, and I'm kind of sad to say so. I don't mind the self-help angle as much as I mind the inane platitudes that he whips out just about every other page. They started out simple enough, and I was digging them – for example:

Resentment is anger looking for payback.

Decisions are beautiful. They are evidence of thought and care. Decisions are the polishing cloths of life.

But they just kept coming, and coming, and coming. And they started to make me angry, and I started to hate them:

Regret is the lost and found of life.

Wishing is the meal you only dreamed you ate.

Hatred is clinical-strength anger.

Rage is anger with the volume turned all the way to the right.

Need is the focused, highly fortified form of want.

Delay is a gun pointed at the temple of confidence.

Perfectionism is the satin-lined casket of creativity and originality.

Shame is a foot that grinds glee into the dirt.

And I had to stop reading the book. I'm going to return it to the library tomorrow. I think I'll go read Dry again, because I don't like this irritated feeling I have toward Augusten Burroughs and I want it to go away.