Three Star Review, originally posted here on April 30, 2015.
Yeah, I’m not really sure how to review this one. i thought I would love this book because I consider myself a Vonnegut fan, and I generally find it interesting to hear what our heroes are like just on their own. But, within the first couple chapters, I started questioning whether I even am a Vonnegut fan. I mean, it’s been over a decade since I read Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, which I remember loving, and Breakfast of Champions, which I read more recently, was just kinda alright. But this book just seemed self-congratulatory and rambling, and I had a hard time getting behind it. I got so bored that I abandoned it to read another couple books (not something I usually do, especially not for something this short), and only recently came back to it. But, as I guess could be expected, this book changed quite a bit from chapter to chapter, and eventually I did find myself quite engrossed by certain sections. Something that redeemed this book a bit for me was towards the very end when Vonnegut points out that some of his work is better than others, and he gave himself grades for each book. My 2 favorites both got an A+, my just-kinda-alright book got a B, and this book, which was up and down the whole time, got a C. Sounds about right. In the end I am glad I read it, because no matter what it is still interesting to climb inside the brain of our heroes. But it didn’t exactly knock my socks off.
Helga without the H 