Breakfast of Champions

by Kurt Vonnegut

303 pages

English language

Published May 11, 1999

ISBN:: 978-0-385-33420-4
Goodreads:: 4980

(10 reviews)

Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. His seventh novel, it is set predominantly in the fictional town of Midland City, Ohio, and focuses on two characters: Dwayne Hoover, a Midland resident, Pontiac dealer and affluent figure in the city, and Kilgore Trout, a widely published but mostly unknown science fiction author. Breakfast of Champions deals with themes of free will, suicide, and race relations, among others. The novel is full of drawings by the author, substituting descriptive language with depictions requiring no translation.

3 editions

AvonVilla reviewed Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Funny, sad, brilliant Vonnegut

5 stars

The plot follows a man gradually losing his mind, culminating in a violent (though not deadly) rampage in his home town. But it's the little sidetracks Vonnegut wanders down which give the book its strength. The puerile little details about genitalia, the musings about depression and mental health, the appreciation and hatred of abstract art, the cruel fortunes of the marvelous Kilgore Trout.

A quick glance at wikipedia reveals mixed opinions about this book. Well, count me as one of its champions, at breakfast or any time of day.

crabbygirl reviewed Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Review of 'Breakfast of Champions' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

at first I loved this book and wondered why I hadn't read more vonnegut as a 20 year old - this guy has a razor sharp eye for satire. but slowly it became TOO exaggerated, TOO satire for the sake of satire. it reminded me of Douglas Adams and the Hitcher's Guide to the Galaxy. and then, then it used a penis measurement jokes so any times (and even in relation to his own member, ugg) that I started to hate it. I didn't like when Jenny Lawson went on and on about her vagina, so at least i'm consistent ...