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Here's a long article by John Irving on the book.

THis is from the end:

Nearer the end of the book, Grass bluntly states: ?I practiced the art of evasion.? What is breathtaking about this autobiography is Grass?s honesty about his dishonesty. From this, ?I was completely and utterly taken up with my own existence and the attendant existential questions and could not have cared less about day-to-day politics? ? to this, ?I have to admit that I have a problem with time: many things that began or ended precisely didn?t register with me until long after the fact.?
And throughout the book are the origins, the actual sources, of details readers will remember from Grass?s novels; the reference to Oskar Matzerath, who ?got himself a job as a model,? had special meaning for me. There?s also the appearance (in a small town in Switzerland) of ?a boy about 3 years of age ... with a toy drum hanging from his neck? ? enough to give readers of ?The Tin Drum? a chill ? or this quieter observation: ?One never knows what will make a book.?
It is the moral certainty, the holding himself accountable, that makes this memoir resonate so powerfully. First loves, first wife and everything that leads up to the writing of his first novel ? they are all captured here ? but, as always, Grass is best at taking himself to task. ?Even if an author eventually becomes dependent upon the characters he creates, he must answer for their deeds and misdeeds.?
Although this autobiography abruptly ends upon the publication of ?The Tin Drum? in the autumn of 1959, when the young novelist and his wife went to the Frankfurt Book Fair ?and danced till morning,? it is hard to imagine there will be a sequel. Grass finds an eloquent way to call it quits ? ?from then on I lived from page to page and between book and book, my inner world still rich in characters. But to tell of all that, I have neither the onion nor the desire.?

(...)

This fall, G?nter Grass will turn 80. There will be birthday celebrations for him throughout Germany; I already know of one in G?ttingen and another in L?beck. I?m planning to go to the party in G?ttingen ? if not the one in L?beck, too.
The dedication to ?Peeling the Onion? reads: ?Allen gewidmet, von denen ich lernte.? (?Dedicated to everyone from whom I have learned.?) In my opinion, every writer who?s truly read G?nter Grass is in his debt. I know I am.

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When I finally bought the paperback of Beim H?uten der Zwiebel (Peeling the Onion) I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, some irritating ticks, too much talk of Grass' penis and too much of a hurry marred the book, but it cohered wonderfully, was a great read and contained much of what I loved and love in Grass' work. A shifty memoirist, he slips in and out of truth, offers interpretations for his own work by claiming real life counterparts to some of his most famous creatures, including the precocious son of an acquaintance of his, who walks into the living room with his tin drum. Grass relates of his talks with a friend in the army, who was to become Pope Benedikt XVI, he does a good job of discussing Germany's dark past without providing excuses (but also without being really open about it, more on this soon) and his writing often shines as it did in the old days. It's the old baroque Grass again, who lays it on too thickly but it feels rarely forced. An inspired book. s*: On hopes, disappointments and surprises: recent books by G?nter Grass and Salman Rushdie