A review by pianorunner421
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

1.0

I have read many classics in my life. I was the reading nerd in school who actually read all the books assigned instead of getting Cliff Notes. I am also a firm believer in reading books that take you out of your comfort zone and that require thought, as well as reading easy reads that just transport you elsewhere. I had previously tried to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book Love in the Time of Cholera. I gave it up after 100 pages. At the time, many of my friends insisted that this was a better book by him and that I had to read it. Many said it had impacted their lives. So, I got it several months ago and it has been on the shelves. I decided to tackle it while still on the holiday break thinking I needed quiet extended time to read this. I am hoping that this is the worst book I read this year, because I found it disjunct, uninteresting, rambling, insipid, and dull. I was encouraged to keep reading and I did. I committed to giving this one a better try than I did the other book by this author and so many recommended it that I persisted. Now that I am at the end all I can say is I have accomplished reading a Nobel Prize winner (whooppee), I can mark off reading a book originally written in another language from my 50 book challenge, and that the one nugget of wisdom I took from the book is that when looking for lost things don't look in your normal path (page 252). There were moments when I had hopes that we were getting to a storyline. There were short passages that were amusing or thought provoking. But overall, I do not feel that my life is better for having read this, rather, I feel I wasted five days I could have been reading something else.