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

Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.

I was very much looking forward this book, as the author is considered to be one of the great forerunners of magical realism, which is one of my favorite genres to read. The magical realism parts of the book were excellent, and I appreciated the writing style. It’s clear the author knows how to write beautifully, and the magical realism elements were chaotic and brilliant. Alchemy and contagious insomnia and arising from the dead… I was living for all of these elements!

But.

I could not get over the trash men in this book, who all seem to have the same name and the same misogynistic viewpoints. I wasn’t digging the incest, the child prostitution, the child marriage trafficking, the literal big dick energy that meant an arrogant man could do whatever he wanted with no consequences, and the stereotypical simpering females fawning over him because of his physical endowments. 

I typically give a book 100 pages before I decide not to finish it, and it’s rare I decide not to finish. But this book induced one hundred pages of anger and disgust, and we were only a few years into the solitude. 

I’m a bit devastated about this, because I really did love his writing style. I wish we’d gotten more insight into Ursula, because she’s the character I truly cared about while reading this book.