Memoirs of Growing Up Strange

If you thought that your childhood was odd, check out some of these stories that are truly odd.

A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness. Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned 20. And that’s when things got interesting.

Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
The true story of a boy whose mother gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist, who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of 12, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor's bizarre family and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull, an electroshock machine could provide entertainment. Also try Dry.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Rather than take its place in what is now a seemingly unending queue of memoirs by people whose lives have been altered by tragic events, tough times and difficult lessons, Eggers's book starts a new line altogether, one that very few authors will be allowed to join. Which is not to say that this work is not...well, heartbreaking. You'll laugh as often as you cry, perhaps more often, and even when Eggers does focus on the grieving and sense of loss he and his siblings naturally endured, his thoughtful, introspective approach avoids navel-gazing.

Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum
At 15, sick of her mom's spineless reactions to abusive men – and afraid of her stepfather's unpredictable behavior – Janice Erlbaum walked out of her family's apartment and never returned. What followed that fateful decision is the heart of this amazing, fascinating and disturbing memoir. From her first frightening night at a shelter, trying to sleep in a large room filled with yelling girls, Janice knew she was in over her head.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
This dazzlingly written memoir of a young English-born girl, whose family moves to strife-torn Rhodesia in 1972, paints a canvas of a landscape few Americans will recognize. The family barely scrapes by as Rhodesia is ravaged by war, then relocates to the bleak, inhospitable landscape of Malawi and finally settles on a farm in Zambia. While her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, her alcoholic mother, in turn, flung herself into their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else.

The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
Karr's comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J.D. Salinger's – a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at 12 and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all. This unsentimental and profoundly moving account of an apocalyptic childhood is as "funny, lively and un-put-downable" (USA Today) today as it ever was. Also try Cherry.

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel
Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would run around like a circus monkey, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. Whether describing a serious case of chicken love, another episode with the evil old woman across the street, or the night Zippy's dad borrows 36 coon dogs and a raccoon to prove to the complaining neighbors just how quiet his two dogs are, Kimmel treats readers to a heroine as appealing, naive and knowing as Scout Finch as she navigates the quirky adult world surrounding Zippy. Also try She Got Up Off the Couch.

Blackbird: A Childhood Lost & Found by Jennifer Lauck
In this luminously written memoir, Jennifer Lauck revisits her extraordinarily difficult childhood. Her mother's lengthy illness led to a reversal of roles, casting Lauck as the caretaker in the relationship. Worse, shortly after her mother's passing, Lauck's father married a woman who might best be described as an "evil stepmother." Lauck's pitch-perfect evocation of her younger self's point of view and her resilience in the face of emotional and physical hardship make this an unforgettable read.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Having emigrated to America, McCourt's family returns to Ireland after his sister dies in Brooklyn. It is there that things turn from bad to worse. It is McCourt's contention that there is nothing worse than Irish Catholic poverty, and his book would seem to bear it out: his family moves to a row house in Limerick that is located next to the street's lavatory; however, the book is written in a lyrical style from the point of view of Frank McCourt as a boy, and it is still filled with the whimsy of growing up and the natural humor of its author.

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
J.R. Moehringer grew up listening for the sound of his missing father, a disc jockey who disappeared before J.R. spoke his first words. His mother was his world, his anchor, but J.R. needed something more. So, he turned to the patrons of a grand, old New York saloon. There, the flamboyant characters along the bar taught him, tended him and provided a kind of fatherhood by committee. Riveting, moving and achingly funny, The Tender Bar is an evocative portrait of one boy's struggle to become a man.

Fat Girl by Judith Moore
For any woman who has ever had a love/hate relationship with food and with how she looks; for anyone who has used food to try to fill the hole in his heart or soothe the craggy edges of his psyche, Fat Girl is a brilliantly rendered, angst-filled, coming-of-age story of gain and loss. From the lush descriptions of food that call to mind the writings of M.F.K. Fisher at her finest, to the heartbreaking accounts of Moore’s deep longing for family and a sense of belonging and love, Fat Girl stuns and shocks, saddens and tickles.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Gossip columnist Jeanette Walls dishes the dirt on her own troubled youth in this remarkable story of survival against overwhelming odds. The child of charismatic vagabonds who left their offspring to raise themselves, Walls spent decades hiding an excruciating childhood filled with poverty and shocking neglect. But this is no pity party. What shines through in this beautifully written family memoir is Walls's love for her deeply flawed parents and her recollection of occasionally wonderful times.

Oh, the Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey
In this memoir, the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction is borne out, and readers are taken for a joyride through the elite social whorl of San Francisco's elite. Wilsey's is a mesmerizing coming-of-age story, a tale of triumph over a loveless and isolated upbringing. It peels back the glittering trappings of the wealthy and lays bare those places where greed and power have usurped the morality, ethics and instinctive decency that together comprise the best of humanity.

Smashed: the Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas
Zailckas uses lyrical and often poetic language to narrate her ugly downward spiral of teenage alcohol abuse. From thrill-seeking teenager to blacked-out sorority girl, she refuses to flinch at the disclosure of the humiliating details of her past. She wants to tell her story and she wants to tell it honestly, as a warning to those girls who would potentially follow in her footsteps.