Reviews

Cent ans de solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

jeffo24's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

c_rabbit's review against another edition

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Too challenging to follow via audio

jill_hohnstein's review against another edition

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5.0

Reading this again after about 15 years. Oh, man. Gabe. I do love Gabe.

curiouserrr's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

mhazeltine's review against another edition

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Would need a diagram to keep track of the names

donato's review against another edition

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5.0

One of the greatest books EVER. A flowing river of Life.
The beauty of this book is that it can't be pinned down,
and why would one want it to be? It just is. A vision.

A thought found in Sculpting in Time, by Andrei Tarkovsky:

"The function of the image, as Gogol said, is to express life itself, not ideas or arguments about life. It does not signify life or symbolise it, but embodies it, expresses its uniqueness."

That's this book.

merryburnsreads_24's review against another edition

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3.0

This book was SO hard for me to read. It was so poetic and I liked the characters but the timeline kept throwing me for a loop. I felt like I lost a lot in translation.

indigodragonfly's review against another edition

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2.0

This has been sitting on my shelf for years, beckoning me to check out Garcia Marquez and one of the "100 Books You Should Read in Your Lifetime." I wasted too many days, hours, sentiments of annoyance on this book in this lifetime, is what I've come to terms with. This book is horrendously boring, self-involved, with far too many tangential bits of tedium which cannot accurately be termed stream-of-consciousness. I care so desperately little about this novel that I cannot consider its themes or character arc(s) -- are there any, really? The family tree at the opening of the far too many 448, narrative-stupefying, dialogue-lacking, paragraph-denying pages does nothing to help a reader in her refusal to accept that all charaters have the same name and we'll hear about their trials and travails repeatedly. Repeatedly. Only to realize it wasn't all that important anyway. Do not read this book. I'm off to something far more enjoyable, and noteworthy.

kara_katz's review against another edition

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5.0

I loved this book. Beautifully written - intriguing story that lingers in my mind even years after finishing it.

acewho's review against another edition

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5.0

I feel like I missed out by waiting so long to read Garcia Marquez. Thank goodness I've found him now. I appreciated reading the P.S. edition of this book, he explained that the way he began to get stronger with his writing was to fully believe every story he told, but to tell it dispassionately with a straight face. He and Murakami are now my heroes of magical realism.