Rating: 
Summary: The literary equivalent of being jailed.
Review: This book is a lot like being in prison: it's unpleasant, boring, painful, and seems longer than it really is. The advantage this book has over prison, however, is the most obvious one: no rape.
Similar to Dead Eye Dick, something that one would not want to be similar to, Jailbird tells the life story of a man, jumping between various times, that's the son of immigrant servants that was sent to Harvard by a rich man, goes to Europe during World War 2 to assist in various ways, falls in love, blah blah blah, goes to jail, gets out, blah blah blah, meets an old girlfriend, becomes rich, blah blah, and goes back to jail. There are many events in this story, but they're not interesting. Vonnegut's simple style, which usually makes for lucid reading and goes unnoticed, is simply annoying. He does not employ the listen colon followed by text, but instead uses, "Peace," to mark the end of a passage. It made me angry. "Blah blah blah, stuff stuff stuff. Peace." It only made the unpleasantness that is this book more obtrusive.
Rating: 
Summary: 3 and 1/2 Stars - Not up to his usual standard
Review: Although Vonnegut's deceptively simple prose and unyielding cynical bent are just as ever-present and by turns caustically, heart-piercingly dead accurate and hilarous, this book ends up falling short of the high standard that Vonnegut had set for himself with masterpieces like The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut here has created a protagonist who gets himself somehow involved in pretty much all of the major American historical events from the Great Depression through the Watergate scandal... He accomplishes this with a neat (and sometimes confusing) interweaving of fact and fiction: dropping fictional characters and institutions into real, factual events -... The author's observations are as cynical and misanthropic as ever (and maybe even a little more depressing than normal - as we realize in the end that the protagonist, ruined as he is, is basically a decent man), but it is lacking that Great Underlying Moral that is the heart and backbone of every great Vonnegut novel. He attempts to satarize all of these major events in one book, and ends up doing none of them particularly well - much the same thing that happens in another one of his lesser books, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Still, this IS a Vonnegut, so it can't be all that bad - and it is worth reading if you're a major fan of the author. If you're a Vonnegut fan, you'll want to read this, eventually; if you're a neophyte, you should read some of his other, better books first.
Rating: 
Summary: poignant portrait of fallen bureaucrat
Review: Definitely the best of Vonnegut's novels that I've read, Jailbird is the story of Walter F. Starbuck, the smallest co-conspirator in the Watergate scandal. Having made his loyalties the best as he could, Walter finds himself in prison for withholding evidence against Nixon, even though he really had no true connection to him or respect from his fellow conspriators. After prison, Walter falls once again, committing a crime that mirrors his Watergate involvement in quite a few ways, and he goes to jail for the second time.Vonnegut's ingenious humor is present always in the book, and his prose is bedazzlingly perfect for the subject. Even though the novel may seem sentimental at times, that seems to be Vonnegut's purpose: his character is a sentimental man and bureaucrat. Readers should note that Vonnegut also uses some symbolism to perfect effect, making the book subtler than most Vonnegut novels. All these elements are Vonnegut at his best; he recreates, hilariously and perfectly, the political world of modern times. Throughout the story, Jailbird provides a pitiful hero, knocked down over and over again by his own fault in the bureaucratic world he has chosen for his home. It seems not so much the facelessness of the bureacratic system that destroys Walter(a theme visited over and over again in too many books, movies, etc.) as his own attempts to try and become part of that system and his emotional view of this world as a place where people are always considerate; his own desire to be a successful, protected, and respected man is the thing that makes him loyal and willing for all the wrong reasons and to the wrong people. In the end, Walter F. Starbuck is a victim of himself, a "jailbird."
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't put it down.
Review: Every time I read a Kurt Vonnegut novel, I wonder why I havent read all of his works. This is a brilliant, hilarious novel rich with cynicism and irony. Vonnegut's dark humor is the kind that doesnt always make you laugh out loud, but cracks you up inside.. I finished the book in about 3 or 4 hours..
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good.
Review: Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for this one. Vonnegut's deceptively simple prose was up to snuff and I was frequently amused by a well-turned phrase or unexpected observation. However, it too often came off like a by-the-numbers Vonnegut pastiche--yet another world-weary, ineffectual, passive observer wandering through a world of failure and hypocrisy.
Rating:
Summary: Funny fiction
Review: This book may make you laugh out loud. It did me, several times. Like when Walter's date, Sarah, guffaws at his boyish attempt to kiss her, "braying like she was at a Marx brothers' movie." Or something. Walter F. Starbuck's striking characteristic, to me, is his humility. He seems to have no hidden pretenses about his role in the world, never forgets his humble origins, never takes others for granted or assumes he's superior to them. He seems generally to assume he's inferior. Yes, he did make some mistakes, but they don't seem gargantuan (for example, he "ratted" on a one-time friend, mentioning during an investigative hearing that his friend had once been a member of the Communist party). The narrative just keeps rolling until about the end, when poor Mrs. Jack Graham, Walter's first sexual experience, dies as a fantastically wealthy bag lady, in her tennis shoes, as it were, filled with a desultory 4,000 one dollar bills and her last will and testament (to distribute her corporate empire to the American people). The ending just seems slightly abrupt. But one important piece of philosophical advice may have been given by Walter, when he notes that, no matter what course he had taken in his life, it really wouldn't make any difference in a world (which is) just a small iota in an infinitely expanding universe. Except to us? Diximus.
Rating:
Summary: Funny fiction
Review: This book may make you laugh out loud. It did me, several times. Like when Walter's date, Sarah, guffaws at his boyish attempt to kiss her, "braying like she was at a Marx brothers' movie." Or something. Walter F. Starbuck's striking characteristic, to me, is his humility. He seems to have no hidden pretenses about his role in the world, never forgets his humble origins, never takes others for granted or assumes he's superior to them. He seems generally to assume he's inferior. Yes, he did make some mistakes, but they don't seem gargantuan (for example, he "ratted" on a one-time friend, mentioning during an investigative hearing that his friend had once been a member of the Communist party). The narrative just keeps rolling until about the end, when poor Mrs. Jack Graham, Walter's first sexual experience, dies as a fantastically wealthy bag lady, in her tennis shoes, as it were, filled with a desultory 4,000 one dollar bills and her last will and testament (to distribute her corporate empire to the American people). The ending just seems slightly abrupt. But one important piece of philosophical advice may have been given by Walter, when he notes that, no matter what course he had taken in his life, it really wouldn't make any difference in a world (which is) just a small iota in an infinitely expanding universe. Except to us? Diximus.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best work.
Review: This is my least favorite Vonnegut of the six or seven I've read. It takes a while for things to get started, and even then they never get on a roll. I never had the desire to find out what was going to happen to the protagonist next. I couldn't empathize with him. I found it easy to put this down at night instead of choosing reading over sleep, as it has been with his other books.
Rating:
Summary: actually 4 1/2
Review: This was the first vonnegut book I've read and it threw me quite a curveball. If you're not use to reading a vonnegut book it takes a different mindset. I was confused in the realm of reality. His inclusion of fictional characters in real life events was an interesting twist. I'm currently reading player piano and find it to be a much slower page turner then jailbird. My favorite so far is slaughterhouse five, but jailbird is definitely worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful look at how silly the idea of money is
Review: This was the third Vonnegut Book I read, and was definitly my least favorite. I found the story of Starbuck to be somewhat dull and dry at the beginning. While it became more interesting as the book progressed, I never really connected with the story. While it isn't a bad novel, it certainly is not Vonnegut's best. I certainly would suggest reading Cat's Cradle and Slaughter House 5 over this one.
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