Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - One Hundred Years of Solitude

A masterpiece of writing—the writing was so good even the questionable bits didn’t stop me from enjoying the novel. Fascinating circular plot, it’s like reading a secular Genesis. Learned more about Colombian history as well. The only “downside” is that because this book inspired a generation of magical realism, sometimes it feels “tropey”. But these are where the tropes originated, so I give it a pass.

Content Warnings

msbug18's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Content Warnings

tencurse's review against another edition

Go to review page

I tried. I really really really tried to like this book. I started reading this to participate in r/bookclub for January since I was either not interested in the monthly pick or I had already read them. So, I picked this.

At first, it was charming. A little bit confusing with the names sometimes, so I had to pay a little more attention to it. But coming from a Filipino background, it wasn't really that confusing to me. The "magical realism" of it was really great, and having it contained to the small town of Macondo was really interesting to me.

However. At one point, there just wasn't enough of the magical realism that I liked for me to finish this book. At one point, there were more icks that I just did not like. This is probably a matter of taste, I guess, and from a literary point of view, perhaps it is intentional to show how messed up the Buendia family is. I think I would have appreciated that stuff a little more if there were actual consequences to their actions rather than just it being "that happened" and then moving on.

Content Warnings