It's taken me a while to cobble this review together. It is an easy read but not as easy to fully grasp the intensity and messages conveyed. This is the first work by Vonnegut that I've read and I was flummoxed for the first few chapters... In a good way! This is a new writing style for me. I think the top line summary would be: Satirical absurdist literature on the futility of war. It's partly a shotgun biography, partly an exploration of philosophy (existentialism, fatalism, ethics, suffering), and always a polemic against war and violence. It's important to appreciate the book's full title: "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death".

It is clear that the Vonnegut's lived experience of being a prisoner of war during the Dresden Bombings give the book's criticisms serious weight. I believe Vonnegut has used science fiction here in a sort of anti-escapist way. He's used science fiction (aliens, time portals) to highlight the realism of war rather than escape from it or glorify it. The passive acceptance of the characters must not be misinterpreted as promoting fatalism, I believe it is deliberately written both as a reflection on the weariness conflict brings upon a person, and a reflection of 'the bigger picture'. This is even mentioned specifically in the text when Billy (the protagonist) says that the young soldiers are just pawns of bigger powers.

Our Billy, in his ridiculous silver shoes, is most likely dealing with PTSD/psychosis induced by his experience of war. He is not stable in any form; he loses sense of time and sense itself. The themes of time and mortality are interesting in how Vonnegut frames it as all happening at once and has always happened and will always happen. The structure/device of time hopping throughout the book works to the reader's advantage I think.

Although there's quite a bit of comedy in the story, (I chuckled out loud several times) Vonnegut doesn't depict war as farcical or trivial. I think his use of humour, irony, and absurdism can actually help people connect to his subject matter. 

On a related note, I've read in several places that readers dislike the 'overuse' of the famous phrase “So it goes”. I strongly disagree. In the text, "So it goes" is used ONLY and ALWAYS used when there is a comment about death, no matter how 'trivial'. The use of it everytime to mark a death, forces us to recognise the volume of death that is occurring. Others have called this annoying, or not additive to the story, I firmly believe it is essential to understanding the story's message. Death is happening frequently. Death is affecting many people. Death is happening whether you really want to acknowledge it or not. “So it goes” is not a way of accepting the shit of life but, rather, of facing death. I think this phrase is incredibly important and its critics have missed the point. 

There is a lot packed into this little book, and I found it ultimately, surprisingly beautiful to read. This is the only fictional book about war and suffering I've found bearable to engage with.