Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

100 reviews

tashba's review against another edition

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

4.75


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chasekj's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective slow-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

5.0

It took me forever and a day to finish, but I loved this book. I'm struggling to put into words all of my thought because it is hard to adequately describe the story to anyone who hasn't read it. I've never been happier/more proud of getting through a book 

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cleansky7's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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gigireadswithkiki's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book is a wonder; upon finishing, its easy to draw parallels to how it has inspired a plethora of other intergenerational novels, though none quite so vast as this story. The way in which Gabriel García Márquez tackles issues of war, imperialism, and colonialism through the lens of the Buendía family members humanizes their struggle to a individual level, interspersing these serious plot points with shockingly jarring moments ranging from pedophilia to incest and everything in between. 

Though these disturbing scenes feel add purely to shock readers, it was definitely intriguing to see the way Márquez uses these instances purposefully to show the deterioration of memory and the cyclical nature of time in the six generations of the Buendías. Although, as a book originally written in Spanish, its interesting to ponder whether the voice of the translator serves to give a different perspective than that originally intended by the author. 

Either way, this book is by no means perfect, but I enjoyed it very thoroughly, though I would heavily recommend checking the content warnings before reading. 

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miayukino's review against another edition

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

4.75


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mayo_confessionary's review against another edition

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It's boring and the way is structurr doesn't help. It doesn't confuse, but it does bored me since I want to learn about new characters and we go back to the same lame ones who are so pathetic. Haven't met a single Buendía who isn't a piece of shit. 

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tommy_g's review against another edition

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

5.0


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jonmayb's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I read this book in Spanish, knowing that it would allow me to get the most out of it possible, and I certainly feel as though I did. This book could certainly be considered an incredible feat of literature, and I recognise its worthiness of the Nobel, but I don't think this was the right book for me. However, I will note, this is certainly a book I'll likely be able to get more out of on a reread.
Spanning six generations of the Buendía family, Gabriel García Marquez exhibits breathtaking world-building. Throughout approximately 500 pages of beautiful, although, at times annoyingly convoluted prose, the town of Macondo, from its establishment, to its dissipation, comes to feel real. Additionally, I found the themes of history repeating itself to be really compelling, as well as the terms of forgetfulness and belief. The part towards the end of the novel where Aureliano Babilonia is walking through Macondo only to find that to be particularly compelling. The prevalence of ghosts and spirits in this book, and their presence as something simply accepted, and not viewed as otherwordly also made for an interesting read. The reappearance of Melquíaldes and his scrolls throughout the work served as an interesting link between generations, as did the theme of solitude.
However, despite being able to recognise this work's merits, I found it to be a nearly unbearable read at times. While Gabriel García Marquez's prose was incredible, and I'm very grateful to have opted to read this work in Spanish, as I mentioned before, it was extremely convoluted at times. Sentences dragged on, changing topics and points of views multiple times within them. At one point, I found a sentence that lasted three and a half pages and had 992 words in it.
Nonetheless, I found this book to overly rely on the abuse of women as a plot device. While, unfortunately, domestic and sexual abuse was something common during this book's time period, the way García Marquez describes them leaves a lot to be desired; sexual abuse tends to be written quite light-heartedly, in a manner in which women are portrayed as becoming near accomplices in it.
Additionally, aside from the interesting points it touches upon, and the genuinely profound themes of forgetfulness, belief, and such, I found this book to feel mostly artificially profound. Many of the more absurd events were seemingly crafted to just require the reader to extract their own meaning from it. For example, when . Even in many reading guides I found, multiple interpretations were put forth, or otherwise didn't present an interpretation at all.
To be honest, I had to claw my way through this book. Even though I can recognise that it was written that way intentionally, I disliked how characters simply floated in and out of relevance. However, upon finishing it, struck by the novel's ending, all my feelings of dislike for the book got obscured. Reflecting upon the book, it's difficult to consider how I would rate it, even remembering how much I struggled to get though it.

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sophie_trtr's review against another edition

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J'ai apprécié la plume de Garcia Marquez, on sent qu'il écrit avec une rage très forte, il sait normaliser des sujets graves (
de nombreux personnages meurent et leur décès est évacué en une phrase
), un peu trop à mon goût. Ce livre n'est pas pour moi, il y a beaucoup trop de trigger warnings pour que je puis apprécier ma lecture : inceste, pédophilie, sexualité, mort. Le lire était devenu une corvée, je passais certains passage et je n'étais plus investie.
Je comprends pourquoi beaucoup apprécient cette oeuvre, même si ce n'est pas mon cas.

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noteworthy_fiction's review against another edition

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Problematic male/female "relationships" . Women are abused and or poorly portrayed

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