Slaughterhouse 5

Title: Slaughterhouse 5

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Number of pages: 192

Started: 23 June 2011

Finished: 27 June 2011

Opening words:

All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names.

Plot summary:

Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller – these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. Slaughterhouse 5 is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

What I thought:

This was an anti-war book mixed with some science fiction mixed with a tale of revenge. It was a decent read, although not entirely memorable...