Rating: 
Summary: Absurd!
Review: This is one of my favorite vonnegut novels. It is so absurd it is incredible. His ideas in this book are wacky in a Douglas Adams sort of way. And I really think he's on to something with his ideas about loneliness being the plague of society. The miniature chinese communists are a little less realistic... currently.
Rating: 
Summary: I agree, it is his best work.
Review: Suitable for death row inmates, except it violates the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment. If this saves anyone from reading this deranged novel, then I just spent a productive five minutes.
Rating: 
Summary: What's so great about it?
Review: Another lukewarm read. The quirkiness of it all was pretty annoying. Vonnegut loves writing about driftwood characters who live life getting pulled in and out by the tide. I suppose they reflect his own personality type. Very unmemorable story.
Rating: 
Summary: THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.....AGAIN
Review: Vonnegut treads on familiar turf with repeated success in SLAPSTICK. Vonnegut narrates candidly as Wilbur Swain. Wilbur and his twin sister Eliza are born horribly rich and horribly deformed. Their aristocratic parents place them in a secluded New Hampshire estate to hide them from the world and to protect them from their own idiocy. The problem is that as the children grow they hide the fact that together they can communicate and have the intellect of a super genius. Despite this they are seperated and Wilbur goes to Harvard, becomes a doctor, and eventually President of the United States while his sister languishes in a group home. She is eventually released and ends up being killed in an avalanche on a chinese colony on Mars.The future shows the demise of the United States, the emergance of tiny chinese as the only superpower, and the mass death of humanity due to influenza and the green plague. The story ends with the narration of Wilbur as he sits as the first king of New York. The tale is as funny as it is outlandish. Vonnegut uses his apocalyptic ordeal to jab at many of society's sacred establishments. He mocks organized religion through his depiction of the "sacred order of the kidnapped Jesus". He manages to criticize marriage, love, patriotism, and the upper class humorously and repeatedly. Even his minor shots are poignant without the hint of subtlety. (One man is not allowed to go to war because the others would not let him escape the responsibility of raising all of his illegitimate children) Vonnegut's wit is only outmatched by his ability to tell an entertaining story. No matter how far fetched the setting, Vonnegut never loses the reader's interest. The book flys by, you can read this in a day without knowing where the time went. I did. My only complaint was that it was too short. I found myself wondering out loud what happened next? Even those who are not die hard Vonnegut fans will enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Vonnegut's best work
Review: While Vonnegut himself criticized this book, giving it a low grade in his writing report card, I find it to be one of his two best (the other being Galapagos). Slapstick is one of the funniest books I have ever read, in addition to being a stunning example of how forced collectivism would affect the world. Vonnegut's books often make no sense on purpose. This annoyed me about Vonnegut when reading Slaughterhouse 5 and Breakfast of Champions. However, Slapstick has an impressively coherent plot. For all those who have complained that there is not enough unity or togetherness in the world, this book is an answer. The arbitrary collectivism imposed by the main character is disastrous to the nation. Everything regresses. While Vonnegut claimed to be an advocate of socialism, this book makes a well-defined argument against it. Vonnegut's works are not often read as intensely ideological, merely as humor, but satire implies ideas. This is one of my 20 favorite books, and that is exceedingly high praise. Vonnegut fans will enjoy the inherent satire in this book, as well as the usual cheap comic gimmicks (yes, you know the phrase involving flying donuts and the mooooooooooooon). However, those who dislike most of Vonnegut's work will find in Slapstick a thorouighly enjoyable, coherent ideological work. Even if you don't generally like Vonnegut's style, this book may very easily surprise you.
Rating: 
Summary: his sci-fi autobiography
Review: Reread the intro to see the genius of the work itself. Great characterization and use of symbol throughout. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: More sci-fi madness, for those who just can't get enough.
Review: Careful: it's not corny sci-fi, like the kind I hate, it's humorous sci-fi. It includes such crazy ideas as: frequent trips to Mars, dematerialization of people, Chinese technological takeover of the world, and a huge plague capable of wiping out an entire population, unless you have the antidote. The narrator is, in this book, a freak of nature, deformed, lurchy and awkward. By himself, he is slow-witted and simple, but with his sister, his twin, he can team up to become super-intelligent. He later grows up to be president of the USA, with new ideas on how to create new families within the States, creating new camaraderie among people who weren't satisfied with only one family. There is in this book - as always with Vonnegut books - an Apocalyptic vision of our world, but as seen from a humorous, wry perspective. This topic never becomes tedious, and always seems to be approached from a new angle. I strongly recommend this book to anyone. It's in the list of the all-time best Vonnegut works.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite of Vonnegut's works
Review: Vonnegut himself said he couldn't decide if this book was his worst - or his best. I love this one and it's my favorite Vonnegut book. In it he actually discusses his own life a good bit, and his relationship with his sister, with whom he was very close. I felt like I had a much better idea of who Vonnegut is after reading this one. The two main characters are very engaging, and the story is classic Vonnegut -- you gotta love people despite all their faults. The story is post-Apocalyptic, as so many of his stories are, but it has a more positive feel to it than many of them, despite the poor circumstances the people are in. The message that life goes on is a hopeful one. I found the relationship between the main characters to be very thought-provoking. I think the critics vilified this one when it was first published, and I can't say that if you like Vonnegut you'll love this one -- because even some of his fans didn't like this one so much. But if you like the idea of 2 soulmates being better together than they are separately, and if you've a fondness for the idiosyncracies of geniuses, you might like this one as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: Review or Why I Liked This Book
Review: This book follows the life of a disfigured mutant ,who becomes president, and his sister, and is as rich in ideas as it is in humor. It's a Plato's Republic for our time. If you are interested in the world of ideas, interested in better understanding human relationships, and have a mind open to things which you don't agree with, then this book, like the rest of Vonnegut and literature in general, is something you should take a look at.
Rating:
Summary: A very eccentric style
Review: "SLAPSTICK OR LONESOME NO MORE," by Kurt Vonnegut is a great satirical and weird story of two ugly twins named Eliza Mellon Swain and Wilbur Rockefeller Swain, who after being parted by their parents and not seeing each other in a long time, went berserk in the reunion. Ironically, neither Eliza nor Wilbur were expected to be intelligent or live more than 14 years old, but who would say that Wilbur would turn out to be the president of the U.S.A. and meet with the king of Michigan. And that Eliza would die at the age of 50 in an avalanche on the outskirts of the chinese colony on the planet Mars. This is a great story put into a bizarre way because "it's the closest thing that Vonnegut will ever come to an autobiography and the way he feels towards life."
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