Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

6 reviews

midwifereading's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

What does GGM smoke when he's writing, because, 😳😳😳. I almost DNF'd this one too, because it's just too much. But, it's a book club book, and I really wanted to say I finished it. And I did it. Listening to the audio on 1.5x speed. 😬

Ultimately, he's a brilliant and beautiful writer, but his subject matter is disturbing, his characters impossible to like, and his style is very difficult to follow at times.

That said, I pulled up the Wikipedia page outlining the plot and characters, which really helped me follow the story much more easily, especially because all the characters have the same three names!!! That family tree came in handy.

This story wanders all over the place, and is supposedly an allegory of sorts about Columbian society, classes, elites, and politics. No wonder I don't get it. I know nothing about Columbia. Although I now wish I did know something! 

There is some stunning visual imagery, especially surrounding death. (Yellow butterflies, any one?) Th characters are vivid, but don't quite feel real, though I assume they're not supposed to. 

Anyway, this book is enough to tell me I probably don't like multi-generational family sagas, because never want to read anything like it again. 

100 Years of Solitude may be considered an international masterpiece, but couldn't it have been told without all the incest and pedophilia? Maybe?

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kmuttschall's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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cvturner's review against another edition

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challenging emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Beautiful, magical, weird. I've read it five times. 

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pandabulous's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

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sunny_not's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative tense 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

3.0

Honestly my personal enjoyment of this book is about 1.5 but I respect the author for creating such a complex, multilayered story with a huge cast of characters who unfortunately mostly share the same name. I was happy to see the book ending mostly because I didn't have to read another Aureliano or Jose Arcadio story. It was definitely not an easy read and I'm glad that I could finish this big and challenging book. Although it's interesting I didn't enjoy it a lot. I strongly disliked the characters decisions and I didn't feel a connection to them. 
I also didn't read the synopsis of this book so I didn't know that this was a story about incest basically, which I hated.
Overall it's good but I don't think it was for me. I also strongly advise anyone who is interested in this to read the content warnings because there are a lot. 

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gagne's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
I've decided if a man told me this was his favorite book, it's a red flag.

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