I liked Running With Scissors, I loved Magical Thinking, I am disappointed by A Wolf at the Table. Not all stories and pasts deserve to be told. I think my issue with this memoir is that I don't fully believe the story and I think Augusten was reaching to have enough for a book. As I stated after reading Smashed, anyone can give a slant to their lives by focusing on ONE event, ONE person, ONE habit. If you focus only on that one thing and relate no other intervening events, situations, happenings, it can seem pretty AMAZING, TERRIBLE, HORRID . . . so on and so forth.
No one doubts that Augusten grew up non-traditionally: we already knew that from his debut memoir. This may come off harsh, but I think Augusten was probably a terribly annoying and needy child, and his dad just didn't give him the attention he wanted. I would venture to guess that he may not have really even liked him-- certainly not a great dad, but I don't know that he deserves the allusions to murder, killing, and hunting throughout the book.
Who knows. Maybe he really was a crazy sociopath, but in the end I don't think what memories and stories Augusten relates were worth being shared.
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