Week 6

Natalie finally gets her job at Mcdonalds. With ehr first paycheck, her and Agusten go on a little vacation. On this vacation Natalie tells Agusten that he should really become a writer, and she also says that she would want to be a singer. Soon after their vacation, Natalie and Agusten move out together. They buy their own apartment and go to the same college after Agusten passes his GED. Agusten soon withdraws from school. A week later his Deirdre called him and they decide to meet up. Deirdre seemed sane to Agusten. She claimed that Dr. Finch had been manipulating her with drugs and medication. He had been perscribing her medication that she didn't need. She said she isn't going to talk to any of the Finches anymore. Agusten can't take all the pressure and moves into his own apartment permanently.


Overall, I thought the book was really interesting and unique. I think it's amazing that this guy actually lived his life like this and wrote about it, even though it's very controversial and graphic. I really liked the way that Agusten writes. The book made me laugh even though I felt bad that he had to go through all of this. I think it's really cool that he grew up in such a different way, because that makes him think differently from everyone else and I admire that about him. I thought the plot was really good, even though it was really confusing at times.

Week 5

Dr. Finch, Neil, Agusten, Hope, and Dorothy all go visit Deirdre at the mental hospital she's staying at in Rhode Island. Deirdre is still crazy. Dr. Finch takes interest in a nurse at the hospital, and she comes home with them when they take Deirdre home. Agusten still thinks that Deirdre is insane. Pretty sure I do too. Soon after they get back to the Finches, Neil runs away to New York. Hope and Agusten to to Greenwich to try and find him, but they never did. Neil dissappeared out of Agusten's life. He tries to find another boyfriend but gets rejected. At the same time, Natalie is getting depressed because the house keeper, Agnes, said that she was fat. Natalie and Agusten spend $40 at Mcdonalds and eat their hearts out.

Week 4

In this section, Neil's attraction to Agusten becomes obsession. He writes Agusten a 16-page love letter. Agusten is a little freaked but likes the attention. Deirdre ends her lesbian relationship with the first woman and moves on to Dorothy, who is another one of Dr. Finch's pacients. Also, the IRS starts threatening to seize Dr. Finch's house, which puts Hope under a lot of stress. One day when Natalie and Agusten go to take a walk, they come back and Hope claims that she made a soup with her dead cat's body. Even though that's disgusting, everyone laughs about it and they have a group hug. To raise money so they can keep the house, the Finches have a yard sale. They decide they like their lawn and start to live on it for a while. Agusten begins to spend half of his time with the Finches, and half of the time with his mom. One night he went to his mom's and she started throwing dishes at him and called him a Nazi. He called Hope, who called the police and the police took Deirdre away.

Week 3

In this section Dr. Finch makes a fake suicide attempt for Agusten so he can legally stop going to school. Agusten ends up going to a mental ward for 2 weeks. This gives him time to think about him and Neil. Evantually they end up becoming lovers. After he gets out of the hospital, Deirdre tells Agusten that Dr. Finch will become his legal guardian, because she is unfit to raise him because of her lesbian relationship. Also in this section we learn that Agusten wants to be a cosmetologist. He gets a lot of advice from Katie, the most normal of Dr. Finch's children. In the next few chapters, a lot of bizarre things happen with the Finches. Natalie and Agusten destroy the kitchen ceiling and put in the pantry window as a skylight, leaving a 7 inch gap of air. At one point Dr. Finch believes that God is communicating with him through poop. He goes on "reading" all his poop for messages from God until a bout of constipation. Also, Hope's cat dies. She thinks that she buried the cat alive, but really it died because she trapped it in the basement without food or water.

Week 2

As Agusten spends more time with the Finches, he stops being so uptight. He starts smoking. Agusten is now older and has found out that he is gay. He tells Hope, who introduces him to her 33 year old gay adopted brother, Neil. Agusten and Neil go on a walk together. Agusten also starts to skip school. One day while he was skipping, he walked in on his mother having sex with another woman. After she rambles for a while, she convinces Agusten to accept her lifestyle. Also in this section it focuses on the Finches and their weird lifestyle. Dr. Finch encourages his family to fight because he thinks it's the core of mental illness. People are always yelling in his house. It also tells us about how Dr. Finch is cheating on his wife with 3 other women openly and his wife doesn't like that very much. In chapter 9 Agusten's older brother, Troy is introduced. He makes guitars for the KISS. In chapter 10 it describes Agusten's first sexual encounter with Neil. He performs oral sex on Neil.

Week 1

In the beginning of the book, Agusten is nine years old. He likes to dress up in his mom's clothes. His mom (Deirdre) is a poet and she thinks that she is going to be famous someday. This chapter pretty much shows how Agusten isn't really a normal kid, and it shows that his mom is more interested in her own career than her child. In chapter 2 it talks about Agusten's dad, who is a math professor. He is an alcoholic. He and Deirdre have a really bad relationship. Agusten rarely spends time with his father. It also tells us more about how Agusten likes to do abnormal things like pretend to play a doctor on T.V. and play with his mom's jewelry. A big event was when Deirdre and his father got into a fight. His dad tried to strangle Deirdre and she cut his head open pretty bad. Deirdre decides to get a family councelor, named Dr. Finch. Agusten makes friends with Dr. Finch's receptionist, whose name is Hope. Hope is also Dr. Finch's daughter. Eventually Deirdre and Agusten's dad get divorced. Agusten and his mom move to Amherst. Soon after they moved, Deirdre's visits to Dr. Finch get longer and happen more often. One day when Agusten asks about a small room in the back of the doctor's office, Dr. Finch tells Agusten that the room is his "Masturbatorium". Agusten talks to Hope about it and tells her it's disgusting. Hope says that it's a perfectly natural thing. When Agusten asks Hope why she isn't married she tells him it's because she hasn't met anyone as wonderful as her father. That pretty much tells us that Hope is in love with her dad. A little while after the visit to the Masturbatorium, Deirdre takes Agusten to go see Dr. Finch's house. The house is worn down and shabby. Once Agusten's mom leaves to go talk to Dr. Finch, he makes friends with more of Dr. Finch's daughters, Vickie and Natalie. Eventually Agusten goes to find his mother. When he does, Dr. Finch tells him that his father is trying to kill him and his mother, so Deirdre will go live in a hotel and Agusten will stay with the Finches.