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adventurous emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Excellent. 

This book is pretty slow in my opinion, it was OK, but I had a hard time relating to the characters.

Beautifully written. Hated absolutely everything else about it.
challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A beautiful and complicated love story that is more a story about love than a straightforward romance. Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall in love as adolescents, exchanging letters in secret to avoid the interference of Fermina’s father. When he discovers their romance, he does everything in his power to split them up, but ultimately, the romance is snuffed out by Fermina’s realization that she was more in love with the idea of her lover than she was with him. She goes on to marry a wealthy and connected doctor, but Florentino never loses his obsession with her, and when her husband dies, he re-declares his love. 

This is an artfully written novel with many vivid scenes of Caribbean splendor and squalor (hence the cholera), and wise insights into the human condition. I also thought the metaphor of the river — dried and damaged almost beyond recognition by the ravages of the riverboat industry — was a brilliant analogy for Florentino’s obsession with Fermina, to the detriment of everyone else around him. I really did not enjoy seeing Florentino succeed, even very belatedly. He’s a horrible person who sexually abuses more than a few women who cross his path, including a May-December affair (maybe more like February-December) with a 14-year-old who commits suicide after he grooms, abuses, then spurns her. I hate to see a guy with sexual ethics worse than Woody Allen get a dub, even 50+ years late… now this is a man who deserves 100 years of solitude.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging emotional funny inspiring reflective relaxing slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

Love portrayed as a disease, masquerading in many forms, like obsession, delusion, concession, and loss, as lived over time through some of the most complex, beautifully flawed characters I've ever read.  And although it took me the first full chapter for the prose and tale to "click," García Márquez's writing (as translated by Grossman) was pure escapism and introspection.
emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Después de una pausa de dos meses por motivos obvios, las Brownies volvimos a reunirnos para leer nuestro segundo Gabo y menuda decepción...

Aparte de todo lo que han dicho mis amigas @lagatalectora y @thedramareader y que yo no voy a repetir para no ser pesada, para mí el gran error de este libro es considerarlo una historia de amor cuando claramente es la historia de una obsesión, la de Florentino por Fermina (se ve que le costaba entender eso de que no es no)... y no solo eso, sino que llega a un punto que parece más la historia de las aventuras sexuales de Florentino que otra cosa... aventuras sexuales cada una más asquerosa que la anterior hasta llegar un caso de pedofilia clara. Y entre todo eso encontramos misoginia, romantización de la violación, etc.

Dos cosas me han gustado de este libro y es la forma en la que está escrito, aunque creo que está muy lejos de igualar a Cien años de soledad, y el personaje de Fermina, la única que me parece medio cuerda.

Una gran decepción sin duda alguna. De las novelas de Gabo que he leído para mí Crónica de una muerte anunciada sigue siendo la mejor. Y pese a la decepción hay otra novela de este autor que quiero leer...