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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I genuinely don't know why I bothered finishing this book... This was a half-hearted fever dream without any definable storyline plot or lesson. I wish I had never opened the book.
funny
lighthearted
slow-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:
No
I didn't figure out that this book was supposed to be funny until halfway through... I was expecting a fun or profound time loop story -- instead I got the confused ramblings of an old man talking about a book, Timequake One, that he claimed to have written and then scrapped, combined with ramblings about his own life. I feel like I would've enjoyed Timequake One more.
It probably doesn't help that this happened to be my first Kurt Vonnegut book (maybe readers of his other books would recognize the recurring characters?). And maybe some of the references were lost on my young self, as someone born after the Timequake would have ended in 2001.
There were a couple of funny moments, but on the whole I found the book boring and the story lacking. Not for me.
It probably doesn't help that this happened to be my first Kurt Vonnegut book (maybe readers of his other books would recognize the recurring characters?). And maybe some of the references were lost on my young self, as someone born after the Timequake would have ended in 2001.
There were a couple of funny moments, but on the whole I found the book boring and the story lacking. Not for me.
medium-paced
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Weird, sad, elegiac and funny final book from the big man. Not his best work - it's half about how hard it was to write and it really shows in the first third - but the second half is particularly lovely, a beautiful way to end a career.
Vonnegut's publisher, wife and brother passed away before this book was published. Vonnegut said this is a failed novel & that this story didn't want to be written but you can feel his grief throughout the book. I think that is so valuable in American culture where we avoid talking about grief and death. I have a copy of this in home & it's one I won't be letting go of.
More a memoir than most of his fiction (and his final book), I couldn’t help but feel that I was reading a suicide note of sorts.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved this book. Loved every bit of it so much, I pick it up now and then just to read a few pages of it. It is at times funny, poignant, auto-biographical, harrowing, and always held up by strong metaphors and symbolism. It reads more like a series of essays at times than a novel, and has enough interruptions and side-thoughts that I often forgot exactly where the often-scattered plot had left off. But I didn't mind that one bit, and still loved every page. The retelling of Satan and God's relationship had me laughing particularly hard, and Satan's simple truth about life, that to be alive is to be "either bored or scared stiff" stayed with me and pops into my head almost daily.
i couldn't shake the feeling, while reading this, that i was watching one of my favorite authors in the world flailing at the edge of a precipice. the worst was that he seemed to know he was in mortal danger, but he could do nothing to save himself. perhaps this is a little melodramatic. but ... sigh.