Reviews with content warning for Child death - Cem Anos de Solidão

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Cem Anos de Solidão by Gabriel García Márquez

93 reviews

bbqcandy's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

Its easy to see why Cien Años De Soledad is considered a classic. The timeless themes of family dynamics and the cyclical nature of time, combined with the pseudo-historical nature of the book and the hint of mysterious magic make this an absolute must read for anyone interested in hispanic and latino literature.

Though the book can be very challenging and confusing, this often serves as a way to further the themes of the book. I’ve heard others complain that they can get confused by all the characters that share names, but this is quite purposeful in the book,

especially as you find out that the characters that share names, also share personalities and even their ultimate fates.

The other, often confusing and major theme in the book is the cyclical nature of time. Much of the book is written in a way where the passage of time is hard to discern. Many sections are written as flashbacks, some segments are written as flashforwards, and overall the book is written in a way that almost feels as if every event is happening at one.

At the end of the book, it is revealed that Melquiades’ manuscript is actually the book we are reading, that he wrote at the start of the 100 years, predicting everything that happens and writing everything as if it occurred all at once.

For me personally, the hardest challenge of this book was reading through it in the original Spanish. I have been a Spanish-speaker my whole life, but most of my education took place in the USA, so I never got the chance to read many books in Spanish, especially more challenging and academic books. I do not regret reading this in Spanish. Marquez’s words and rhythms add a deeper layer to this book that makes it so much more rich and often beautiful in a tragic way. That said, I do wish I had read other, simpler books in Spanish as practice, in order to work myself up to reading this one. I don’t think my lack of skill took much away from my experience reading this, but it did take me a long time to get through it.

I could talk about this book for hours, but this review is getting long, and I’m writing on the clock at work, but I will just say that this is an incredible book written by a very talented author and I would frankly recommend to anyone, especially if they are interested in hispanic literature and history.

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mantha625's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Loveable characters? No

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olgordo's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Well, this was truly something. A tragedy of a cursed and doomed family in Colombia over a period of 100 years. There were parts that blew me away and parts that hollowed me out. Disgusting parts. I just don't understand how people love it so much, how that word can be used for it I don't know. It is an amazing and affecting, wondrous and likely important work. But I did not love it.

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isnotacrayon's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

2.0

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juiceman's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny 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

One of those books that you can’t fully appreciate until you have finished it. Wasn’t going to give it 5 stars until I got to the last page and suddenly found myself wishing I could read it with fresh eyes all over again, with the mystery and unknowing of where it was all going. Where are we all going?

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lolosadcat's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

this book has some of the most consistently superb writing that i've read - not only in prose, but structure as well. the plot of this book isn't so much a linear plot as much it is the meandering story of the rise and fall of a line of people and their town, jumping around points of time. however, every story beat and reveal feels carefully placed and the entire book has great, steady pacing.
that being said, i would recommend reading this with the family tree accessible to help remember the character's names and relationships. the repeating names can be confusing to track, but they are important to the themes of certain traits and flaws repeating in the family.

definitely one of the most fascinating books that i have ever read. i'll be thinking of this doomed family and their exploits for quite a while.

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glorifiedloveletters's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad 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

On Bluesky, there's a monthly book club that seems to be mostly "I always meant to read that" selections, and this is one of those books. I'm so glad I decided to participate because, yes, this is worth reading. ("Sara, this book is one of the best known..." YEAH I KNOW, but sometimes you gotta state the obvious.)

Some of the deaths and uh..... relations.... are a bit hard to stomach, but that's part of the point of the book and isn't just because of changing times. You'll also have to flip back to the family tree at the beginning in order to keep track of all the Aurelianos. The rest is a wild ride of magic and devastation, and it's a masterclass of descriptive writing.

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