Hey all. Second time posting! Please beware:spoilers in this post!

I just finished Cat's Cradle after having read Sirens of Titan. I was encouraged to read something else by Kurt Vonnegut since I had really struggled with Sirens of Titan.

First off, I'll say that the tone, writing, and almost "playfulness" of Cat's Cradle was a welcome change after the "weirdness" of Sirens of Titan. While it was still a challenging read, I was able to get through it more quickly than Titan. Now I'm no expert, but having read my second Vonnegut book, I feel his storytelling is just difficult to breeze through. I really enjoy that I had to stop and think or even reread some parts of both books. They almost felt like more of a study than a story.

In my post about Sirens, I mentioned I couldn't feel connected to any of the characters. The only character I felt was relateable was a sentient robot. In Cradle, I was able to somewhat understand the motives behind the characters, why they were the way they were.

The narrator was the only "boring" character to me. His immediate infatuation with Mona later in the story really didn't make any sense. (I don't know about Vonnegut but in the two books of his I've read but it seems like his characters meet a mate and latch on to their attractiveness for dear life.) The narrator's "voice" was easy to read and understand... but I just don't get why he did some of the things he did. Jump into the offered presidency of San Lorenzo? Lash out at Mona when she wanted to practice the "free love" of boko-maru only to change his mind literally a page later? Oh well...

The Hoenikker father and siblings were interesting to me. I really felt like they had their own separate vitality and personalities, which felt refreshing compared to Sirens.

I really enjoyed Bokonon and Bokononism. It felt like it was almost a "joke" religion as the books mention: everything was based on lies and nothing really matters.

I enjoyed the "end of the world is near" threat of ice-nine. I think I enjoyed everything up to the last two "chapters" if you can even call them that. I wasn't expecting the narrator and Newt to see Bokonon right at the end. I understood the premise of the whole book up until that point. Why was Bokonon just sitting on the bench? Why was he saying he wanted to go up to the mountain and die there? If you've made it this far (sorry, long post), maybe someone can help me understand that?

What I expected: More Vonnegut strange writing, a bit of science fiction, a story with a concrete ending. What I read: Guy wants to write a story about a scientist (I think?), meets some people, learns about some scary substance that can end the world. Learns where scientist's long lost kid is. Meets some more people on an island. Sees some hot chick. Inherits a presidency on a whim. Foot-bangs said hot chick. Finds out old president, who's already on his deathbed, offs himself with scary substance. World ends due to freak accident with said scary substance. Guy meets a fabled religious figure, and learns that nothing really mattered anyway?

TL;DR: I feel like I have a better understanding on what this book wanted me to think. But the ending left me feeling like I was cast out to sea with no direction on how to get back home...