God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Rating:
Summary: Observation
Review: I've just discovered Rosewater and Trout in Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse-Five....I'm interested to see what comical situations they get into in this book.

Rating:
Summary: eccentric, naive, and often rather dull
Review: After greatly enjoying some Vonnegut sci-fi, I was perhaps looking for the wrong thing with this book. It is a weird story about a nutty millionaire, who is in danger of losing his money to an assembly of the sleaziest twits you could possibly imagine. While there are many very funny asides, such as his love of Kilgore Troustian conceptions or the characterizations of the evil guys (one's posterior is "luminous when wet"), the plot is weak and far-fetched. For example, Rosewater's grandfather built his massive fortune by buying companies in accordance with their acronyms from the Bible's text! That is too silly to be satire. Moreover, Vonnegut's laments about the coldness and brutality of American capitalism are sentimental and even ignorent. He seems to have an obsession with rich people.

Not recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: Okay, so God Bless You... may not be the the best thing Vonnegut's ever written, but Vonnegut on an off day is still well worth reading. This book has all his trademarks, from biting social commentary and blazing satire to dark humor and quirky characters. It's a speedy read that will make you both laugh and wince by turns. Don't make it the first Vonnegut book you read -- for that, I'd suggest Slaughterhouse 5 -- but if you're a fan give it a whirl.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: As a huge vonnegut fan, I was very upset to find that this book had a badly developed plot, uninteresting characters, and an almost tragic lack of all the things that make a vonnegut novel great. There really wasn't even what I'd call a complete story, and I skipped a lot of pages out of boredom just to keep things moving. Not recommended for anyone except the rare person who thinks Vonnegut's good books are bad and wants to read a bad one for the sheer pleasure of it all.