Reviews with content warning for War - Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death

While this most definitely was very interesting, the tone and style of the book didn't really land with me. I think my biggest question, having ended the book, is why the narrator, who is is own character, is telling us about Billy Pilgrim. I feel like I missed something. Maybe I did.

(Reflections 8 days later)
I think this is a book I like more to have read, than I liked actually reading it. I've been thinking a lot about it, and my conclusion is that I really like the story. It stuck with me. When I finished the book, I very firmly felt like I wasn't interested in rereading it, but now that I've had it in the back of my mind for a while, I'm thinking that maybe I will after all. I wonder what I'll get out of it if I do.

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koromylo's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad fast-paced

2.75

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melist6's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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zoe_271's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

To anybody wishing to ingest a quick, yet intensely meaningful story, to be amused and provoked simultaneously - give Slaughterhouse-Five a read. Vonnegut's blunt, short and sharp style pairs impeccably with the disjointed nature of the narrative, following Billy Pilgrim, who has come unstuck in time.

We see a non-glamorised side of World War Two. Billy doesn't face any combat, or win any medals - he's captured before doing much of anything, imprisoned, and we see the truth that many men faced in the war - awful conditions, forced labour, and boredom ruling. The firebombing of Dresden is the climax of the novel, Billy reminiscing on it in the future and looking ahead to it from the past, the omniscient narrator too reminding us that 'he was there.'

Billy's life is dotted with interesting characters that Vonnegut makes stick even in their small scenes. Every line of dialogue lets us know who these people are, and every person serves a purpose - an old historian who needs to disparage others and marry young girls to feel powerful, a soldier who lives to seek revenge or a poor, too-caring colonel who wants people to come to see him in his home town.

I don't think I would recommend Slaughterhouse-Five as a first Vonnegut read, as Vonnegut's style takes some adapting to, in the course of which I believe some meaning could be lost. It certainly is a necessary, pivotal read though, central to the discussion about war, how we frame it, and how it affects us. And so it goes.

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