Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - One Hundred Years of Solitude

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

37 reviews

aseel_reads's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

i did not like this at all. i can see the elements of the book that would make it good to study in a classroom and the magical realism parts were interesting, as were the creation and destruction of the town/see the advancements of technology/parts of history, but i just did not care for any of the characters, especially the frequent description of their s*x lives.

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I mainly picked this up because I put it on hold at the library during a (very brief) classics-reading kick earlier this year and promptly forgot about it. When it came available, I figured I might as well read it.

This story chronicles six-ish generations of the Buendía family and the small town of Macondo. Family heads José Arcadio and Úrsula, along with a group of unrelated other people, take a long trek into the jungle and build a town. Their family grows, their children have children of their own, and the Buendía family gets bigger – in number, in wealth, in stature in the town. Times change, war happens, the town becomes less isolated, new scientific inventions happen, the family begins to disperse away from the town. The town of Macondo rises, and then falls, with the Buendía family.

This is a weird book, but from my limited experience with magical realism, this is weird in ways consistent with the genre. It’s like the real world, but a little to the left. Alchemy is a thing that works, there’s a side character who may be immortal or may be already dead, one character gets medical treatment from psychic doctors who are thousands of miles away, a character gets taken up into heaven, and nobody views this as at all out of the ordinary. In fact, magnifying glasses and turning metal into gold are treated with equal seriousness and excitement, like the ability to put the right ingredients into a pot and turn them into gold is a neat scientific advancement like curving glass to make things bigger.

The thing that surprised me the most about this book is that for all its century-spanning scale and magical realism bizarreness, it’s remarkably human. None of these characters are great people, but they’re all doing their best in their circumstances. I found something relatable in every character – in Úrsula’s resourcefulness in keeping the family functional; in José Arcadio’s desire to learn all about cool new things; in Fernanda’s rigid adherence to rules; in Amaranta Úrsula’s desire to leave the small town where she grew up and grow in the wider world; in Remedios the Beauty’s … well, let’s be honest, Remedios the Beauty was who I wish I could be. There are six generations of Buendías, each of whom love and lose, grow and die, succeed, fail, make mistakes, and ultimately just are in all their messy glory. It sounds pretentious to say this book is about the human condition, but it kind of is.

My biggest struggle was keeping the characters straight. Normally I would blame this on the audiobook format, and it is what caused my difficulty remembering Arcadio and Aureliano were two different characters. But the book itself doesn’t make it easy on me, either. This family reuses names a lot – there are three José Arcadios (and one just Arcadio), three Remedioses, and twenty-two Aurelianos (although to be fair, only four of them actually have major roles). There are also 32 biological relatives and 8 spouses stretching across the century this book covers, not to mention characters who aren’t part of the Buendía family. At some point, I felt like I needed to give them numbers to tell them apart.

I didn’t think I was much for the “sweeping family saga” type of book, but if they’re anything like this, I may have to reconsider. I didn’t get particularly attached to any one character (unless you count Remedios the Beauty, who I mainly loved because she’s #goals), but I enjoyed seeing the high-level view of the rise and fall, fortunes and misfortunes of the Buendías. One Hundred Years of Solitude is, much to my surprise, an enjoyable and remarkably relatable book.

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notartgarfunkel's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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therowdypi's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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lindseyhall44's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

To be honest, this was not my favorite book in the beginning. There were many grotesque trigger warnings which made it hard to keep reading. But Marquez’s writing has a beautiful style which offers a searing reflection on the human condition.
One Hundred Years of Solitude follows one family through the creation and fall of a mythical town named Macondo. As the times change, so do generations, and readers can witness war, loss, and ultimately solitude from the lense of a unique household.
I loved the depiction of history repeating itself, an all too familiar aspect of the modern times. I think that’s what makes this novel so popular well past its publication, even in a community so different from ours, we can see parts of our struggles in them. Wether in the strong Ursula, the curious Aureliano Buendia, or the isolation of the colonel, their experiences live on.
I will say: Please check trigger warnings. This will not be a book for everyone.

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carlytenille's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

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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.

Content Warnings