Slaughterhouse Five

Title: Slaughterhouse-Five

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Pages: 215

Genre: Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: Billy Pilgrim is a time traveler, who was abducted by aliens and forced to live on exhibit in an alien zoo.  Throughout the book there are flashbacks of Billy's time as a soldier in World War II.  The aliens who have abducted Billy Pilgrim do not experience time in a linear fashion as we do, and the book is written along these lines.

My Review: There are lots of well-known books that you hear about and wonder what they're about.  I knew very little aside from the title of this book and found the story and content to be a complete surprise.  It wasn't a bad book, in fact I quite enjoyed it.  It was just a little bit on the strange side, but what else is expected from Kurt Vonnegut? And so it goes.

Breakfast of Champions

Title: Breakfast of Champions

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Pages: 5 discs

Genre: Fiction

Grade: C+

Synopsis: Kilgore Trout is an aging writer from some of Vonnegut's other books.  Kilgore is intrigued (and slightly aghast) when he finds out that a car dealer from the Midwest believes everything that Kilgore writes is the literal truth.  Throughout the book, Vonnegut makes light of America's attitude towards sex, politics, war, etc.

My Review: I finished this book a couple of months ago and the honest truth is that I can't remember all that much about it.  This may be due to the fact that I had a hard time comprehending what was going on in the book as I was listening to it.  I looked up a few summaries that helped me understand what was going on and that helped.  The book is a satire of Vonnegut's view of the world, which he wrote as a present to himself for his 50th birthday.