Love, Kurt is a rare and wonderful collection of letters written by Kurt Vonnegut to his first wife, Jane Marie "Woofy" Cox, over the course of several years, from his early days as a student into his time serving in the military. They were discovered many years later by their daughter, Edith.

I thank NetGalley and Random House's Volumes app for a look at both the beautiful pages of letters inside and the audio version of them being read. This is definitely a "must see" for Vonnegut fans, which both my husband and I are. The book is gorgeous and it's a treat for any fan to see Vonnegut's handwriting and personal affections to his wife. He was certainly devoted to her, at times obsessed. Neither my husband or I cared for the audio version, but both attributed it to the narrator's style. He often shouted and made many sentiments in the letter come across almost manic in their obsession or emotion. The book, however, is beautifully put together and I thank Edith for sharing this treasure with the public. Her input in the book was my favorite addition. Because only the letters from her father survived, we don't get Woofy's perspective or reply. Edith introduces each timeframe with a bit of family context and includes a most gorgeous closing letter that is from Woofy, written to an editor on her husband's behalf.

I had mixed feelings about this book and am not prepared to give it a proper star rating, as I must admit that I didn't complete it cover to cover, as I usually do. I attempted to read this as an advanced copy from Netgalley on my kindle paperwhite, and while the introduction was exciting and intriguing, the ARC was nearly unreadable. This is clearly meant to a large format, full color publication, perfect as a novelty piece on a coffee table, but the content simply wasn't accessible to me as it was presented.

The letters are presented as full color photographs, complete with Kurt's own handwriting or type, including doodles, watermarks, wear and tear, and other stains and marks. They are a beautiful collection and deserve to be preserved. I would love a hard copy of this book to sit on my coffee table and impress my friends. If I had a coffee table. Or friends. But I can't recommend that anyone buy it on an e-reader for any reason. It was like looking at kindergartener's drawing of the grand canyon.

Vonnegut is my favorite American author, and any further insight into his thoughts and emotions is welcome. I just wish that my advance copy could have done it justice.

Love Kurt, is a compilation of love letters to his first wife, Jane. I am a long time fan of Kurt Vonnegut and loved having a deeper look inside his personal life. While I did find him to sound a bit obsessive and possessive at times, I feel like that was just his creative writers mind taking over. Overall, I found this to be a fascinating read and would highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about this author's personal life.

I haven't read Kurt Vonnegut in the past, but I've felt love as a young man and it was so interesting to see how he truly pursued his wife during the time period covered in the book. From grandiose promises to begging, Vonnegut's feelings ran the gamut but he hated everything for his future bride.

His granddaughter, who assembled the letters for publication, did a great job of adding short blurbs of context throughout the book. I'm fact, without her comments and implied permissions,I would have felt as though the reader had stolen the letters and was reading them secretly!

While I found it truly fascinating to read the chronological events detailing Kurt Vonnegut's relationship with his first wife, as well as the actual letters he wrote to her, those letters became a bit of a liability to the story.

Not only were there a ton of them, but most were a strain to read. The book would have benefited from having the typed-out version of each of the letters next to the picture of them. I also would have liked for them to be cut down a bit as they became a bit redundant, especially with no responding letters present. It got to the point where I would skim the letters, only reading the short and legible ones, and only focused on the descriptions Edith gave with each new section.

Wonderful idea, just needs a bit more fleshed out execution.

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

An intimate look into the mind of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and his relationship with his first wife. The reader follows along with their relationship from high school through the war with some information supplemented by their daughter. Any fan of Vonnegut will find this peek behind the curtain fascinating.

"What I say in letters to you is particularly no one's business," Kurt Vonnegut wrote to the woman he loved, never imagining that his future daughter would publish his missives in a book. I feel bad for him, especially since he never intended for his hormonal ramblings or ecstasies about sex to be submitted to the public eye, but I enjoyed reading this collection. It was interesting to see how much he loved his first wife, and to see his development as a writer.

These letters are organized chronologically, and each chapter begins with biographical information about his life and some photographic reproductions. Going into this, I knew very little about Vonnegut, and I was primarily interested in this as a collection of WWII letters. As such, it did not disappoint, but I also enjoyed learning more about him, his life, and his writing aspirations. One of my favorite entries from the section about his postwar experience was a rejection letter that he received. He doodled and wrote on it in amusing ways, and it made me laugh out loud.

This book made me laugh a lot, actually. Even though I'm not familiar with most of Vonnegut's work, I connected with his writing voice and enjoyed his clever turns of phrase, amusing observations, and unique way of looking at the world. I also enjoyed his many doodles. These letters are photographically reproduced, not just presented as transcripts, and I loved his drawings in the margins, his interesting handwriting, and his dramatic signatures. It was also interesting to see reproduced telegrams and Red Cross letters from the war.

Other reviewers complain that Vonnegut seemed creepy to them in these letters, and I can see where they are coming from. His declarations of love can seem obsessive, especially in the early letters, when he was trying to get Jane's attention. However, even though many of his statements seem like red flags at face value, I often read them as him being playful and facetious. It's a matter of context, and even though I get why other people found some of his statements disturbing, I just saw this as dramatic and silly, especially since so many of the letters are written in a very lighthearted tone.

As I previously mentioned, Vonnegut writes dramatic things about sex. He effuses about how attracted he is to his girlfriend and then wife, and often tells her how much he longs to make love to her. I would have found this all extremely uncomfortable and off-putting when I was a teenager, but from an adult perspective, it's part of life, and part of letters from war. He occasionally makes some comments that could be construed as explicit, depending on someone's sensitivity level, but most of his comments more intimate than lewd. Even though I would DIE of mortification to have these letters reach the public eye if I were him or his partner, none of this is pornographic.

I enjoyed reading this book, and it was a fun surprise to see that the letters were reproduced directly, not just transcribed. However, this also made my digital edition difficult to read, because the print was small on my laptop screen. Even though Vonnegut's handwriting is very legible, the lines are often small and cramped to conserve space, and when it's a thin sheet of paper with writing on both sides, the markings that appear through on the other side make it even more difficult to read it.

I read an advance copy of this through NetGalley, and even though I'm glad that I had this opportunity, I probably would not have requested the book if I had known how challenging it would be to read. I would encourage future readers to pursue a hard copy of this book instead of reading the Kindle edition, because the writing is very small on a screen, and I got a serious case of eye strain from trying to get through it. If someone wants to read a digital edition of this book, they need to be prepared for the struggle and for the fact that they may have to skim over or skip some of the letters.

Despite the complications that I experienced while trying to read this book, I really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to people who are fans of Vonnegut, and to those who enjoy reading historic letter collections and letters from WWII. It's an enjoyable collection, and even though it's very unfiltered and intimate at times, making me wonder what in the world Vonnegut would think of the letters' publication, it's a very engaging reading experience.

This arc from Net Galley was hard to read. Both because it was a literal strain on my eyes and because Vonnegut came across, well, creepy. I learned a lot about him, but feel like this will make it harder to read his stories.

This book was an unexpected delight. In a series of simple (and not so simple) love letters, Edith Vonnegut captures the ebb and flow of her parents relationship from high school sweethearts, to fraught college lovers to war-time pen pals. What is also unexpected but wonderful to witness over the course of the letters, it Kurt Vonnegut evolving as a writer.

This book was bitter-sweet and delicious and I can't recommend it enough, especially if you are a Vonnegut fan.

Love, Kurt is a collection of letters from author Kurt Vonnegut to his future wife Jane between 1941-1945. Due to the nature of this book, we are not privy to any of Jane’s letters, save one, and this leaves huge emotional gaps. Vonnegut comes off as obsessive and manipulative, pressuring Jane to break it off with other suitors and marry him instead. He at one point early on writes to her that he has made a bet on when she will become his wife and that he get $10 for every year if she says yes sooner. It is possibly the fact that their marriage ends with Kurt leaving Jane that skews my opinion, but the letters were unsettling nonetheless.

As a huge fan of Vonnegut’s work, I absolutely loved this book! It was so wonderful to get to know him as a person in a way that I feel like we never would have, if his daughter had not found these letters. Reading his thoughts and watching him envelop into a writer was such an incredible journey, and I was so sad when it was over!

If it involves Vonnegut, it has to be wonderful and I wasn’t disappointed. An enjoyable read. Thank you to,the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

As a fan of Kurt Vonnegut I looked forward to reading this book.It was just what I expected wonderful fun entertaining, #netgalley#randomhouse

I spent the greater portion of my evening with this book. I knew when I requested it that within a name like Vonnegut on the cover I realized that it would be a rollicking good read. I was not disappointed. If you love Vonnegut, whether it's Kurt, Edie, Mark or any other, you will not be disappointed with this book. A fun read.