I really fell for Augusten’s writing with A Wolf at the Table. Maybe because I have an absent father. My mom divorced my father when I was about eight. Several years later my dad basically disappeared into the verdant scum that is Florida. He turned up several years ago but pretty much blew it.

I’m not a fan of holidays and particularly do not like Christmas. So when someone writes stories about the holiday I’m not really thrilled about it but willing to read them if I like the author. YOU BETTER NOT CRY focuses on Christmas-related stories. So for me, they are hit and miss. There are seven stories in the slim green bound book and I particularly liked three. There’s the absurdity of a young Augusten making a brick-hard gingerbread house from scratch and sans recipe in “And Two Eyes Made Out of Coal.”

In “Ask Again Later,” Augusten wakes up in a hotel bed next to a much older French guy dressed as Santa. Did they or didn’t they?, Augusten wonders and immediately rushes to his doctor for every test conceivable. He is then haunted by Santas throughout the streets of New York and of course thinks of this kinda creepy Frenchman.

Augusten spends Christmas with his HIV-positive partner in the poignant, wistful and bittersweet “The Best and Only Everything.” Augusten is forthright with details about the initial rush of love and the banality of a relationship. Wanting what you don’t have and then not wanting what you have. We’ve all been there.

I like the darkness in Augusten’s writing. The honesty. The bizarre. The raw. The surprises. He is willing to share intimate moments and thoughts. Of course, that makes or breaks a good memoirist. YOU BETTER NOT CRY might not be the best work by Augusten Burroughs but it will bring a smirk to your face or tear to your eye and that’s what the holidays are all about. ( )

I read four out of seven stories in You Better Not Cry and think it's typical Burroughs. Some teens will like it, and the story about him waking up next to a fat, French Santa had me laughing out loud. He tries to figure out whether or not he had sex with Santa and I was grinning away. In the first story he writes about his confusion between Jesus and Santa as a little boy. Again, funny to me, but not everyone's humor. This has the best cover ever, although my 6 year old picked it up and tried reading it before I snatched it away. Yes, I'm censoring! ( )