Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Cat's Cradle

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

13 reviews

sunn_bleach's review against another edition

dark funny reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

Another one of those revisits from the mid-2010s when I was getting deeper into adult reading. I felt middling upon first reading "Cat's Cradle" in around 2015 or 2016. Upon this read, I get it a lot more, albeit it's still not my favorite Vonnegut. The parallels to MAD and nuclear warfare are more obvious, though it's clearly meant to be so - the man is angry. Vonnegut writes imperfect and unlikeable characters yet usually separate that from the author's voice (masterful in "Breakfast of Champions"), but here it's hard to separate the pseudo-nameless narrator from Vonnegut's own voice in the native sexualization and overuse of "midget". One can always say he's aware of this - especially since Newt gets it more than anyone else - but it's still jarring. The banana republic satire is similarly confused, at once sardonic toward the USA's involvement in the rape and pillage of those countries while also kind of playing it straight with McCabe and Bokonon.

Yet, as with some other mixed opinion reads this year, I still liked it. The ultimate "fuck you" to God at the end and mordant tendency toward fatalism is incredible. I had a friend who in his early 20s called himself a "Bokononist", and I see why.

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sreddous's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

It's really, really hard to write a "generally emotionally-neutral observer" main protagonist who just kind of describes what's going on around them.

Kurt Vonnegut's "deadpan" sense of humor is so efficient for the really difficult and dark topics he writes about. I loved it in Galapagos, and I love it here -- I'm able to really absorb the genuinely beautiful prose and quotations and dialogue because I sort of do feel like I'm reading 'a religious text.' There's a strange balance of spiritual lightness with very dark and pessimistic outlooks that doesn't feel tonally-dissonant.

The plot was hard to predict, and I actually got anxious (in a good way!) once the 'final event' started happening. It's so well-paced the way that things fall one after the other, and you KNOW what's about to happen next. Great suspense, great buildup!

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mxhcat's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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nnmrir's review against another edition

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective

3.5

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senpai_no_lie's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

2.75

Some of the language and humor has not aged well. Hints at themes of science, religion, and morality. About the end of the world in a way that's fairly light-hearted and strange. No one is a good person but they're not unlikable.

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salm0n's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

5.0

I went in to this book knowing nothing about it and have finished feeling like I've always known the story. This book is reflective, witty, and attention holding-- a wonderful introduction to Vonnegut's writing. The ending is just brilliant. I think we all could learn something from Bokononism.

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