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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4980.Breakfast_of_Champions?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Breakfast of Champions" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517166m/4980.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4980.Breakfast_of_Champions?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Breakfast of Champions</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/998584.Kurt_Vonnegut">Kurt Vonnegut</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4344501?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars A loveable, highly enjoyable and entranced satirical look at western culture (and the United States in particular), this might be rightly termed not as a novel but as one of the best examples of contemporary American parable. Vonnegut is witty, dry, matter-of-fact. His detached perspective gives fresh meaning to the subjects about which he writes, and he plays with words in a way that lets the reader know that, yes, the author is fully aware of the fact that this is fiction, not reality, and something that is read, not fully experiential, and so on. He breaks through the sacred threshold between reader and author so that you know he is someone to whom listening is a worthy gift. 
 
 There were multiple, uncountable times of breaking out into laughter with this story. There existed also a few times of having to laugh uncontrollably for a while. And so on. However, at the end of these one comes to a place in the novel that could make one freak out in like respect, mostly because of the sheer flip to painful, personal material. 
 
 Vonnegut tackles issues of our day in a way that makes one pain with the truth of it. He does this by sandwiching it in such sarcastic, detached humor that it is easy to find oneself curious as to which things should be laughed at, and from what motive that laugh ought spring forth, and so on. Put simply, it challenges the definition of "fiction". It begs the reader not just to be engaged but to engage back. In this way, he more than adequately represents in the author-reader relationship what he represents in his characters and himself in the novel. It is definitely one for the keeping, even if no other Vonnegut novel is owned.
 
 ETC.
 
 
 **
 These initial impressions are still up here because they are better suited for premonitional reading:
 
 I have very high hopes for this one, Joseph. You'd better prepare for my exacting precision in review!
 
 (This is fifteen minutes later now:) Never mind, I'm already laughing.
 
 **
 
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/173702?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

michael spencer's review
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A loveable, highly enjoyable and entranced satirical look at western culture (and the United States in particular), this might be rightly termed not as a novel but as one of the best examples of contemporary American parable. Vonnegut is witty, dry, matter-of-fact. His detached perspective gives fresh meaning to the subjects about which he writes, and he plays with words in a way that lets the reader know that, yes, the author is fully aware of the fact that this is fiction, not reality, and something that is read, not fully experiential, and so on. He breaks through the sacred threshold between reader and author so that you know he is someone to whom listening is a worthy gift.

There were multiple, uncountable times of breaking out into laughter with this story. There existed also a few times of having to laugh uncontrollably for a while. And so on. However, at the end of these one comes to a place in the novel that could make one freak out in like respect, mostly because of the s...more

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message 1: by Taylor

08/27/2007 07:24PM

awesome, this is on my list.