Forrest Gump

First - as you can gather from the other reviews. The book is not the movie... the characters are the same (more or less) but the movie takes a bit of the gist of the book and spins it in a whole ‘nother direction and one that pleasingly incorporates all those iconic images from each era.
The book plays out as a series of vignettes that are thinly strung together. Forrest bounces from situation to situation (some you'll recognize from the movie). The vignettes are sometimes satirical, sometimes social commentary, and sometimes just plain silly. The language is at times a little difficult to stomach - but Forrest is a character that comes from the pre-civil rights south, and an idiot savant to boot - so, the language is part of the character and the era.
It was a quick read. I enjoyed this, for the most part - I did laugh out loud several times while reading it. It's enjoyable - but won't be shelves among the favorites that I re-read. I gave it 4 stars - because it's not quite a 3. I'd give it a 3 1/2 stars if I could.
Now I'm going to go pop some popcorn and watch the movie (which IS one of my favorites).