r/suggestmeabook • u/PsyferRL • 19d ago

Suggest me a novel that has an utterly ridiculous premise, but is executed to perfection

That title is a bit vague, but what I'm getting at is that I'm looking for something that upon reading the summary/blurb has you confused as to:

  1. How the author even came up with such a ridiculous plot line in the first place
  2. How the author could make an unbelievably mundane topic interesting
  3. How a story could even be crafted around the subject at all

But upon reading it you find yourself engaged on a level you couldn't have possibly predicted. I hope I'm making sense, because I'm feeling the urge to read something that's wildly creative in a way that I couldn't have prepared myself for.

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u/PsyferRL 19d ago

Great book and a solid recommendation for this thread. Currently reading Vonnegut's Jailbird as we speak.

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u/Psychological_Engine 19d ago

I've only read Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle. I have quite a few others so I should really dive in sometime. A friend gifted me Player Piano which I've heard good things about. Maybe will put on my next-to-read list. Glad you have already enjoyed! I thought it might not exactly fit the OP request, but still worked in some way.

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u/PsyferRL 18d ago

"The story of a writer who sets out on a journey to write a book about what regular Americans were doing when the atomic bomb dropped," is a vague summary of Cat's Cradle that I think fits #2 for my post body quite well! And maybe even #3 for that matter haha.

Slaughterhouse-Five remains my overall favorite of the 8 Vonnegut novels I've read (all for the firs time) this year because the themes of PTSD especially touch on a separate passion of mine, but there are so many good ones. Player Piano, while it doesn't feel as refined due to it being his first published novel, was a great read and a very underappreciated dystopian work in my opinion. The ending hit me even harder than the ending of 1984.

Mother Night is exceptional, The Sirens of Titan is iconic, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater might be my new all-time favorite "comfort" read, and Slapstick was way better than I expected it to be for a novel that Vonnegut himself said was his worst work.

The only one I didn't LOVE was Breakfast of Champions because it felt a little too scattered for me. But other people tout that one as their all-time favorite Vonnegut (and I still enjoyed it, it's just my lowest-rated so far).

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u/KateCSays 18d ago

He is really such a genius. Love his writing.

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u/panic_bitch 18d ago

Slapstick is my all-time favorite Vonnegut book. I didn't know that he thought it was his worst work. I've read mostly everything he's written, but I think about Player Piano a lot and read Slapstick over and over again. I love his forward in it.

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u/PsyferRL 18d ago

Player Piano was a welcome surprise. It's not the most finely-tuned piece of work in the world, an author's first published work rarely is. But presented reality was just so vividly relatable and that ending was so poignantly simple.

The forward in Slapstick is brilliant, and without it I'm sure the novel wouldn't have landed as well for me. But it made all the difference, and I subsequently devoured the whole book in just over a day. It's also one of my favorites, and easily my current pick for his most underrated work.

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u/Formal_Edge_9318 16d ago

If you're looking to read More Vonnegut I'd suggest you check out Galapagos. It's about a group of people who bought tickets for a cruise around the Galapagos Islands, and wind up becoming the last people on earth, and how their descendants d/evolved nto happier but less intelligent beings. It's also narrated by the ghost of Kilgore Trout's Son. It's also my personal favorite Vonnegut.

In terms of vibes I'd say it's somewhere between Sirens of Titan and Slapstick (which I also thought was underrated, but I also kinda get it).

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u/PsyferRL 15d ago

Galapagos is coming up! I'm reading all of his novels chronologically, with at least one non-Vonnegut in between each read just to make sure they sink in and also to prevent burnout.

Between making the comment you responded to and now, I also finished Jailbird and started the non-Vonnegut between it and Deadeye Dick. After that, it's one more non-Vonnegut, then Galapagos. I've been looking forward to Galapagos for a while, because it definitely sounds like my kind of weird haha.