What a depressing book! I know the title isn't exactly reminiscent of flowers and sunshine, but I was still surprised at the lack of positivity in this book. Most war stories have touching or honorable moments, but this one is just sad, scary and negative. (So probably a pretty accurate description of actual war.) It is well-written and thought-provoking, but certainly not uplifting. One of the characters uses tons of slang and is rather hard to understand as well.
Billy is a soldier who is very afraid and doesn't want to fight. He is captured and kept in an old slaughterhouse by the Germans (slaughterhouse five, of course). It is no longer used but still has animal carcasses hanging in it (a rather gruesome war image). Because it has a cellar where the guards and prisoners go during bombing raids, they are among the survivors in the city. I won't tell you the end, so as not to ruin the story, but I will warn you being survivors is probably the happiest thing that happens in the book!
Obviously this book contains violence. It was particularly unsettling to me, since the violence occurred in places other than the actual war like among prisoners and after the war had ended in a fictional future.
It is worth the time for the experience, but it isn't something to read when you need cheering!
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