Of the two widely known works, I much prefer Slaughterhouse Five over Breakfast of Champions. In classic Vonnegut style, a sarcastic, funny, yet largely depressing story is told about a soldier's experience in WWII. The reader is brought back and forth through time to see an evolving perspective of the lifetime of a person who's been touched by war.

A unique narrative of a life told out of order as a character-- and the author-- tries to make sense of the absolute destruction he witnessed in Dresden during WWII. And what does he come up with? Fatalistic, time-independent aliens.

This book gave me some ideas about the impact of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The time travel seems like a coping mechanism that becomes more pronounced as time passes. I thouroughly enjoyed this book, read it in just a few hours.

A great book worth reading at least twice. The main character Billy Pilgrim has become 'unstuck in time', and the book moves back and forth throughout Billy's life, including his experience as a POW during the bombing of Dresden and as a zoo exhibit on the planet Tralfamadore. The absurd humor and resigned tone of Slaughterhouse-five belie the horror of war and the bombing of Dresden that are at its center.

Vonnegut is considered a master absurdist and storyteller for good reason. If you only ever read one of his books, make it this one.

I really enjoyed this book. Though the beginning was a bit slow and dull, the story managed to pick up. I thought it was going to be all about war but it dealt a lot with the main character's (Billy Pilgrim's) life during the war, in Illium, in Tralfamadore -- all the while travelling between these separate time periods of his life. 5/5.

This was my first Kurt Vonnegut book and it didn't really feel like a great book. The story started extremely slow and I found it difficult to get into. The first chapter didn't really explain who the main character was and I found myself trying to determine who in the book I was reading about. I realize the book is from the late 60's which might be part of the reason I wasn't a big fan of the writing style; although I thoroughly enjoyed books such as 1984 and A Brave New World. I've even read old books like The Oddysey, which I thoroughly enjoyed. SH5 just felt too fragmented for my tastes even though the author meant for it to be fragmented. And the parts about the aliens just seemed awkward only to introduce a new perspective; though I found that idea philosophically interesting. The story raves that it's comedic, but I didn't find much of it very funny. And as an anti-war book it just seemed to fall short of the mark. The end of the book does get better, but not much. It's an average read, but if you're interested in a book with a older style and don't mind the fragmentation so much then give it a try. For me, only 3.5/5.

One of the most important books of the 20th century, and fun to read too. Powerful anti-war satire mixed with autobiography and social satire.

I just finished reading this book with a group of friends for school, we all agreed that it was an 'okay' book. Billy the main character time travels which helps keep the movie interessing. Normally i hate sci-fi books about outer space and aliens but I thought it was well written the alien parts of this book. Some parts of the book wasn't very appropriate and there was one section where I had wished I hadn't read. I would not recommend kids under high school reading this. There were many moving parts of this book that related to the war. I'd recommend reading this to someone older.

A pretty good read. Now I've read a fair amount of literature and as a younger person, I'd heard so much about how this is a must read. So I finally read it. And it was not what I expected in a good way. I had no idea there was a sci-fi element to it and I thought that was the strongest part about the book. The war elements....not so much but blended in with the "mythic journey" of Billy PIlgrim...it was very powerful. Vonnegut has such a read-able style of writing too, I finished it in just a couple of days. The time travelling was amusing, entertaining, and well written. Vonnegut is also witty. He had me laughing out loud literally at some parts.