Reviews with content warning for Animal death - A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

I read reviews complaining this book isn’t funny. Anyone who expected “a memoir of psychological cruelty” to be humorous has clearly never lived with an abusive, domineering presence looming over their lives. I listened to the audiobook, and Augusten reads it in a poetic, musical way whenever not speaking dialogue. This book was hard to face at parts, with the rape, mind games, and I especially struggled getting past all of the animal abuse. It starts early and sets the tone. I’ve never read Running with Scissors, but I don’t know that I want to be exposed to more of his trauma filled memories.

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_bxllxe_'s review against another edition

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dark funny sad tense slow-paced

3.0

A father can be many different things. Doting. Deadbeat. Homicidal. The father in this book chilled me to the bone. Stephen King couldn’t write a better villain.

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becatetwo's review against another edition

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dark funny medium-paced

3.75

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jojoreads89's review against another edition

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slow-paced

1.0

Huge waste of time. There isn't one good thing I can say other than there were some darker parts that were intriguing and would make you think "ok, now it's gotta start getting more interesting", but then it wouldn't.
If you like books with an antagonist that verbally harrases his kid throughout and no one learns anything except "hey my dads a dick and I'm glad I'm not like him", this is it for you.

The sypnosis makes you think there is this huge mystery of maybe the dad is a murder and maybe this kid ends up confronting him and some real shit goes down?; but in the end you still don't know if it was a dream or reality. Literally the entire book is a father being a piece of shit to his family, parents get divorced, he grows up, Dads still an asshole, then dad dies and kid later realizes hes not like his dad.

It had an Interesting plot that fell so hard it couldn't get back up, characters had potential but never went anywhere and a narration that was annoying (he kept pausing between words "then my mother....did this ..with..a....needle.((that was just an example, not in the book))

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enchantedtoreadyou's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

This was a great reread. I read the physical book years ago and was rocked by the things Augusten had to go through. Now as an adult with a four year old child it hit me even harder.
I read the audio this go round and l Think it made it that much more impactful. The original songs really brought the story to life in the best and worst possible way. The sounds and music were some of the best I’ve heard in an audio. If you feel you can handle the triggers, definitely give this audio a try.

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v171's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

I have read several books by the author in the past, and have really enjoyed his work. I knew his talent lay in memoirs, and I had heard that this was slight deviation from his other works. That didn't prepare me for this utterly shocking recollection of a childhood filled with trauma and horror. I can't image the sheer terror that Burroughs dealt with every day in his most formative years, and how he pushed through the difficulties that obviously followed him into adulthood. It was heartbreaking but very powerful in the way that the stories were constructed. I didn't walk away from this book with feelings of anger or horror. Just a profound sadness for the love that Burroughs was deprived.

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