This is how

having read at least one of Augusten Burroughs's memoirs - and knowing he can be quite funny and/or weird due to his very unusual upbringing - I didn't know what to make of this book. was it supposed to be a joke on self-help tomes? once I realized it wasn't that type of book, and saw that he was giving serious advice on all these issues (and more), I was taken aback more than once. he thinks AA encourages alcoholics to relapse; he says he'd kick an anorexic daughter out of the house (control issue: actually, on paper, his reasoning seems firm), he recommends admitting to a dying child that they are dying (!), he channels a whole bunch of new agey bullshit: "we are all made of recycled stars" and he tells the reader that therapy (and therapists, and revisiting the past) are mostly a waste of time.
can I bring up his lack of expertise now?
he's no psychotherapist; he has no background in anthropology; he has no 'letters' after his name to back-up his opinions/theories. true, he's had a very wide experience of life, he's a recovering alcoholic and he's had to face a lover dying, slowing, before him. and some of his advice was good, but mostly he veered into the 'we are all miracles' stuff that is too saccharine for the Burroughs i know.