This book was genuinely one of the most impactful books I've read. Not because it changed my perspective on life or anything, just that every line led me somewhere and it was gut-wrenching and painful and once a few pieces of the puzzle slid into place... I couldn't keep reading. I had to set it aside just to process it. It doesn't make much sense, and I've seen a lot of people comment saying they didn't like it because of how non-sensical it is. However, this is the whole damn point of Slaughterhouse Five--its about a traumatized optometrist who didn't really belong in the way and a plane crashed knocked his PTSD around his skull so badly he can't make sense of reality, so he feels like he's traveling through time.
Not everyone will understand this book, of that I am certain. So it goes. Honestly, any good book that packs a punch is like that, because the underlying meanings and messages are always difficult to discover, and some people (like me) happen upon them accidentally through speculation and are hit with their full force out of nowhere.
I love this book. ( )

Dacă vă place absurdul, v-o recomand. Este o carte memorabilă prin originalitatea ei.
Dacă nu, vă avertizez că este o lectură stranie, schrodinger-iană: mi s-a părut, constant, simultan o carte foarte bună și una foarte proastă. De aceea și nota, medie între 1 și 5. ( )

slaughterhouse 4 was better ( )

Maybe this was the book that really taught me that a movie could be great, but a movie could never contain all the things a book could tell me. ( )

This book is one of the harder ones to review, in part because I am not 100% sure I totally "get it". But I found it a very, very interesting read. Not interesting in the way a book normally draws you in and makes you fall in love (or hate) with its characters and immerses you in its storytelling. Rather interesting in the big themes it tackle in such an understated way and with a good amount of black humor thrown into the mix. While I believe the book is known more for its anti-war sentiments, I actually thought the more interesting themes were fate vs. free will and religion (Jesus) vs. science (Darwin). You really can clearly tell where Vonnegut's sympathies lie regardless of the topic, but I have to say he does a great job of not jamming his philosophies down your throat and letting you subtly draw your own conclusions.

The story itself is somewhat bizarre. The protagonist is Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist who fights in World War II. The story tells snippets of Billy's life going back and forth between his war experience and the other experiences of his life. The anecdotes are not told chronologically because Billy is disconnected from time and can experience any component of his life at any time. To make matters more strange, he is kidnapped by aliens who have a very different world view from our own.

Normally, this part is where the book would drop to two stars for me. I like my fiction realistic, and this element is clearly not that. But I question in my mind if the alien part is even intended to be true or whether it is intended to be a result of war time trauma. Regardless, the way the stories are interwoven and the interesting themes actually did grab my attention. I would really have LOVED to read this in a classroom setting, and it would make an excellent book club book though I suspect many members of groups like my own would balk at reading it and hate it. There is a boatload to discuss though. I feel a need to see if the 1001 book group read it in the past as I'd love to see the commentary.

All in all, I think this book is deserving of the fame it has received. It's very accessible and not hard to read, but will definitely make you think. ( )