r/kurtvonnegut

My son got Cat's Cradle as a gift from an old friend of mine and he enjoyed it and is looking for more. I've read all of them, but it's been many years and I'd rather avoid some of the more adult themes until he's older.

I was thinking Sirens of Titan is a pretty straight-forward sci-fi story without, say, any characters being in an alien zoo with a porn star.

Am I remembering that right? Any other semi-appropriate books for a smart middle-schooler?

Firstly, I have read three KV books and loved them all (SH5, breakfast of champions and his selection of short stories/thoughts published shortly before his passing- sorry, can’t recount the name off the top of my head).

I have been looking forward to CC for a while and just couldn’t get in to it. I loved his style of writing, his irreverence and brilliant turns of phrase. But the story just didn’t seem to go anywhere. It felt like a disjointed mashup of character descriptions and tangents which were largely funny- but lacked the general moving story I so enjoyed in Breakfast Of Champions.

130 pages into the 200, I just put it down. DNF.

Have I completely shat the bed with this or what?

(I expect some down-votes, but please be assured that I am not knocking a writer whose work I generally enjoy reading!)

Edit: really appreciate the comments. I will pick this back up. Thank you.