Taking a break from our (not) regularly scheduled movie posts to talk about a book I finished a little while ago now.
It used to be a big secret but is now not much of a secret that I am in 2 going on 3 book clubs. I guess this book club which I call the Carlton Book Club or Ethan's Book Club or the Finance Book Club or my Discord Book Club is the "main" one. Of the 3-ish clubs, this is the one that feels the most like a commitment. We read 20-30 pages every week and then we DISCUSS. And even when I loathe the book we choose, I've always finished it anyway (at least up until now).
From the end of March through the beginning of June, we read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, which means that some of my friends have been hearing me complain and/or sing this book's praises since I started it many months ago at this point. Combo of travel and moving and concerts and no audiobook and p e r s o n a l life things had me falling wayyy behind, but I caught up in time for our final discussion and I'm done. Yippee! Me and Breakfast of Champs went on a real journey.
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It was kind of love-at-first-chapter for me and Kurt Vonnegut. Something about the way he writes and his specific brand of cynicism really worked for me from the start. He speaks to my brain in a way that few classic authors have so far. I'd read Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle and maybe even all of his graduation speeches and letters written to high school fans. He just seems like a weird guy with cool thoughts. I think I could become a fan too.
Vonnegut is so weird, I could tell that very early on, but he sees the world in a really interesting way. Both of the main characters, Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout, are depressing self-inserts in different ways. Trout, in particular, is a science fiction writer who comes up with the wackiest fucking concepts in the same way that Breakfast of Champions is a wacky fucking book. I will be thinking about Dwayne Hoover and Hawaiian Week every time I see a car dealership from now on.
I loved the beginning of this book and the setup a lot, but the culmination of everything just felt so gross to me, and I KNOW that's the point, but that doesn't mean I have to be on board. I knew this book was going to feel pointless, but it was so much more pointless than I could've anticipated. It feels like a whole lot of nothing, but it's nothing that I want to read more of.
Consider this a highly-entertained 3 stars. I enjoyed reading this book and I feel positively about it, but do I think it's good? What is it even about?? We-are-all-machines-and-the-story-has-already-been-written-and-nothing-matters-because-the-author-of-the-story-is-god. Vonnegut doesn't seem like a very religious guy to me, but I think that's his thesis here. (He should meet my good friend Joe Abercrombie. They would make an extra depressing duo.)
Half of my book club friends are haters. They believe Breakfast of Champions has too many tangents. But to me, the tangents ARE the book; it would be nothing without them. Just Breakfast without the Champions <insert sad Walt Jr. image here>. It's fair to not like that style, but I think they're wrong anyway (though I too could do with a couple hundred fewer words about penises and beavers).
My notes are currently split between two kindles, my phone, and my physical copy. There are way too many great quotes in this book for me to highlight all of them, but here's one snippet in particular that I think I'll remember for a long time:
He said he knew that his truck was turning the atmosphere into poison gas, and that the planet was being turned into pavement so his truck could go anywhere. "So I'm committing suicide," he said... "My brother is even worse," the driver went on. "He works in a factory that makes chemicals for killing plants and trees in Viet Nam... In the long run, he's committing suicide," said the driver. "Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way."
Depressing and thought provoking. I spend many hours each week working at a company that is doing cool technology things, but are these cool technology things going to have a good impact on the planet in the long run? And if the planet dies, what are the humans going to do? Option 1: die. Option 2: send Ryland Grace to space.
Read: May 30, 2026
Rating: ★★★ / 5
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