Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut

21 reviews

kh11's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail

celery's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

chidera's review against another edition

dark funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

mossbird's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

So it goes.

An incredible recounting of the firebombing of Dresden and an emotional retelling of how people change after intense trauma that left me giggling at parts and soberly understanding exactly what Billy Pilgrim was experiencing at others. Vonnegut pulls no punches when describing the atrocities of war and spares no detail in depicting exactly how it has fractured the mind of his protagonist, and the effects that fracturing has. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Violence, and War

Moderate: Gore, Excrement, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Antisemitism

douknwdewy667's review against another edition

dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

count_of_carabas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Dementia, Trafficking, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

devermismysteris's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

precise's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I read Slaughterhouse-Five for the first time in high school. I found all of Vonnegut's work at the time to be highly compelling,  to the point where for my senior quote in high school I chose the quote that is prominently featured in The Sirens of Titan. It is worth mentioning here that I also consider the period from midway through my junior year of high school until the start of my junior year of college to be the absolute lowest point I have experienced or likely will ever experience in my life. 

I reread Slaughterhouse-Five in advance of a trip to the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. I am glad that I did. It definitely enhanced the museum exhibits to see, for example, the ceremonial WWII saber that Vonnegut took home from his service on display (not particularly called out at the museum as such, but mentioned multiple times in the book). 

I also found Slaughterhouse-Five to say much more about trauma and stress than I remembered. It may make sense that I didn't remember this - see above re lowest point in my life when I first read it - for all that I experienced stress and trauma as a teenager, I don't remember a lot from then anymore. A naive assumption one might hold about trauma is that Billy revisits the worst times in his life over and over. Instead, he travels at random through things that definitely happened in his life and things that might not have, a much more nuanced metaphor for feeling adrift and like agency has been taken from you in the wake of a traumatic experience. I was also reminded, having also read The Body Keeps The Score less than a year ago, of how recent our modern mental health constructs are and how post-traumatic stress treatment was not really available to Vonnegut's generation. 

Overall - the book is fairly short, it's not satisfying and it's not meant to be. It does a good job of capturing a specific mood, and is worth reading for that even though it's not a pleasant mood.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Excrement, Medical trauma, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

I listed a lot of content warnings to be on the safe side but I would not warn most people about them explicitly before recommending this book

thedrtaylor's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide, Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

sputnik2's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Infidelity and Car accident