Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel,   ISBN:9780385333849

Customer Rating: 

I picked this book up for fun one day at my bookstore job. It looked interesting & throughout my life, this was one of Vonnegut's books that everyone's crowed about. I just wish I'd liked it as much as they did.

Since there's dozens upon dozens of reviews on here that give the plot synopsis, I won't bother rehashing it here & just give you my opinions.

I liked the book for the most part. It just didn't grab me. The idea of the book is fantastic & I can see where it is very well written. Parts of the book did interest me- especially the idea of predestination. Billy accepts that things won't change, so he doesn't really try to change anything. (Well, assuming that he traveled through time at all. It is debatable to some people whether any of the book was real or just a delusion.)

If you have to read this for class, don't worry. The book is enjoyable enough. Hopefully you'll even like it more than I did. I liked it enough to finish it & recommend it to my sister (who loved it), but not enough to really re-read it like I do some of my other books. If you don't have to read it for class, I still recommend it. It's an interesting enough book. Just check it out from the library first.

Customer Rating: 

Simply put one of the most important books by one of the Centuries greatest authors. If you want a chance at understanding Vonnegut you must study this work. Yeah, you hear it over and over but in this case it is true. Read it and make your own conclusion, which is one of the wonders of this masterpiece.

Customer Rating: 

As always Vonnegut is a master of the succinct sentence and sublime art of maintaining one's attention. This book is wickedly funny, delightfully sarcastic, and honestly heart-wrenching. It is neither as insightful or well-written as Cat's Cradle, but it is far more touching and it takes a far more realistic view of life. In all, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

Customer Rating: 

Slaughterhouse-Five the wrenchingly sad tale of Billy Pilgrim, tells the story of a man whose experience in WWII haunts him for the rest of his life. When the book was published, most middle-aged American men were veterans of WWI. Billy's nightmarish flashbacks, his contempt for women and his desire to live a middle-class life must have seemed familiar to many of them. Slaughterhouse-Five was a valuable attempt to shine a cartoonish light on the horrible memories that veterans carried in their hearts. It was a counterpoint to the myth of WWII, popular at the time, that WWII was a "good" war, and that the horrors of real war had not existed.

Slaughterhouse-Five is not about the bombing of Dresden. nor about the German people who were killed or survived the bombing. It is about the way the war can destroy a life, even after it is over. Billy Pilgrim, witnesses very little in Dresdin, but sees many horrible things during the war. During the bombing Billy was being is in a meat locker. When this book was published, the most shocking thing about the story was the coverup of the Dresden bombing by the American government.

Slaughterhouse-Five depicts war as awful and senseless. But beyond that, you can't read Slaughterhouse-Five and not feel the loathing that the author had for women. Female characters are viewed by the narrator the way a twelve-year-old boy might treat them--at his worst. Its a kind of objectification that has gone out of style in American literature.

For me the one dimentional, comic book style characters were more depressing than humorous. Billy goes though life in a dream that has little to do with the complexity of the human experience.

There are much better books that describe the horrors of war.

Customer Rating: 

When I saw Ethan Hawke was the reader for this classic, I couldn't wait to check it out. When I brought it home and hit play, I was confused. Ethan reads the ENTIRE book an a near monotone WHISPER! I don't know if he was whispering because it was a stylistic choice, or because he wanted to save his voice, but it ruined the book. As a comparison, there is a clip of Vonnegut reading after a short interview at the end of the book, and it was a tremendous improvement.

I was heartborken such a gifted actor delivered such a terrible reading.

Do not buy!