Kirkus Style Review

    Billy Pilgrim was a completely ordinary American, until he became unstuck in time. 

In a novel sweeping decades, Billy Pilgrim’s experience in World War II dominates the narrative, as it is in 1944 that he first becomes unstuck in time. Stationed to be a chaplain’s assistant, Billy never met the chaplain he was assigned to, and instead was left wandering behind German lines with three others. Eventually they are taken as prisoners of war, and this takes them to Dresden. It is this plot point that establishes Slaughterhouse-Five as the testimony of Kurt Vonnegut and his attempt to make sense of human atrocity. The existence of the Tralfamadorians and their relationship with Billy Pilgrim also runs through the entirety of the novel. They introduce Billy to a new ideology that conflicts with the traditional concepts of time and meaning and free will, an ideology that Billy wrestles with in his attempt to embrace it. 

An astounding homage to the human experience and celebration of humanity.