I finally read this book after receiving several recommendations from friends. All I can say is that I now question their taste in books, and I'm somewhat ashamed that I believed the hype. Like another commenter, I kept waiting for the good part but found that it never came. Sure, Burroughs had a messed up and extremely odd childhood. However, the sequence of shock and awe, boring filler, shock and awe, boring filler, etc. is not enough to hold this book together. Apparently, a bad childhood does not a great writer make. Don't waste your time on this immature, repetitive, and underdeveloped work. The writing is so poor that you'll think Burroughs wrote it during his teenage high school dropout years.