S'more Sci-Fi Book Club discussion

Our read for November is Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I've only ever read Vonnegut's short stories, so I'm very excited to dig into this novel! If you're reading along, let's have a discussion! :)

What are you thinking of the book so far?
How do you feel about the depiction of ladies and POC? The way Newt (a little person) is treated and reacted to?
Are you enjoying the themes? The idea of fate/destiny is handled much differently than in Frankenstein. Did you prefer one way over the other?

... only having read a bit of the book, I'm not out of prompting questions LOL! But you all know the drill, just share your feels, dagnabbit! :P

I'm really curious to hear your guys second part of the discussion because I honestly found that this wasn't that engaging of a book. My biggest issue with this book was that I had a hard time being sympathetic towards the narrator, he did almost nothing besides talk to people and had such a fatalistic view that I found myself not really caring what he did. Additionally,the problematic and offensive language, as well as the treatment of women as being constantly lesser grew quite tiring throughout the book. I found that compounded along with the majority of the characters being rather flat and not having much complexity didn't engage me the way I had hoped. I might also mostly be reacting to the treatment of almost all characters as lesser to the narrator to be honest. I found the religion interesting, the unwilling prophet who embodied Vonnegut's sarcastic and depressed nature was entertaining. I found the end of the book a bit strange, I was confused as to why the book was in sci fi until the last 50 pages. I understand the idea of meeting the karass and then only learning of what's it building towards at the end of your life as the matching of the pace of the book, but it didn't lend to making the story engaging to me personally. I didn't set out for this to come off as so negative, but it is how I feel about 12 hours post-finishing. I would love to hear other peoples reactions!

Did anybody else think of the video game 999 - nine persons nine hours nine doors when reading about ICE09? It so reminded me of all-ice and I am now wondering whether I am missing references to earlier texts or whether this is the first time somebody came up with the concept.