Rating: 
Summary: Falls Short of Hype, Still a Beautiful Read
Review: This book has been so hyped that it would almost be impossible for it to live up to the high expectations that I had. That being said, I do think it was a wonderfully written and haunting novel.
If this book is read on the surface for an entertaining story, then it definitely drags and is hard to keep the various characters straight. Sometimes the mysticism seemed forced and detracted rather than added to the story. It was also very much like a soap opera with so much drama and cheap plot twists that it was hard to take seriously at times.
Marquez has a very beautiful writing style and often there will be sentences and phrases that jump off the page for their purity and wisdom of human existence. At other times, his writing style made me feel as if I was viewing this saga through a glass window and was never quite able to get into the scenery and characters. This could also be because Marquez would jump between characters as soon as I was getting to know them.
However, now that I have finished the novel and am able to view the story of the Buendia family as a whole it is much more interesting than when I was in the midst of it. Each member of the family was used to personify the various tactics and personalities we employ to live our lives. No matter what anyone did during their lifetime, whether it was attempting to escape or embracing their loneliness, they were reduced to their solitude before death.
There are many interesting parallels and symbols that make the read more interesting for me. Perhaps the people are really symbols for countries and represent the different strategies of countries to be successful, yet no matter what they do they are always a government condemned to the chosen system? Maybe the family is used to represent the entire human race, and the fact that we refuse to acknowledge our inherent flaws has destined us to our own destruction? Whatever the interesting parallels that you draw for yourself from this novel, there are important thoughts about war, humanity, solitude, love, lust, happiness and life woven throughout the pages.
Rating: 
Summary: hypnotic kind
Review: This is one of the few stories I've read that always give a fresh jolt for every reread, in fact its hypnotic beauty has found me reading it for the third time now. One Hundred Years of Solitude teems with allegory and renders a reader to a full state of brooding and perspicacity. From the concept of the revolution and its paradox, to the ineffable alchemy; across the detailed and odd sounds of sex and death, promiscuity, incest, love and wild love, this amazing tale will surely dissolve you like a trance. The story's beginning is distinct and its end penetrating but what rich plots and (sometimes larger than life) characters span them in between. The comic and the tragic intertwine gracefully, while some few hints of ancient science are amusing. While this story constantly talks about a man's or a woman's solitude because of a pursuit or obsession or perhaps because of a forgotten past or one's inability to deal with reality, or just plainly a secret to an old age (time plays a significant role), it also expresses man's hope of raising virtue and integrity again in spite of dissolution and madness. It depicts social realities (most outrageously) and seeks contemplation on the nature of our being. Whatever description this novel has gained, being marked as Magical Realism, Postcolonialism, Historical Narration or whatever, I would rather call it a pure expression of of life.
Rating:
Summary: This is the account of an imaginary town called Macondo
Review: through the eyes of the Buendia family, I had to read this for the AP English class I'm taking next year in school as part of our summer reading, along with this I had to read LIGHT IN AUGUST by Faulkner and CATCH - 22 by Heller and this book is the longest one and I decided to put it off for last because I felt lazy, here is the funny thing, this book took me a week to finish while LIA and C-22 took like three weeks each, it is not a hard read but you must concentrate really hard because new characters and introduced out of nowhere and characters that you didn't hear about for a while and about whom you've forgotten suddenly pop up again, that is always a pain so I just made up a list of characters and I just referred to that or you can just go to sparknotes.com which I am cure has plenty of information about this book, a nice pleasant read, should definitely check it out
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: Truly this novel is a masterpiece. It tells the story of a family line condemned to live one hundred years of solitude. But this could be anyone, any family because maybe solitude is a human condition, which is what I came away from the novel with.
What a brilliant book. The loves and lives of this family are so exquisitely told, fusing magic into everyday life, and it is all tied together by the gypsy Melquiades. Such poetry, such vivid images stick in my imagination, such as the mechanic lover boy who is followed by a cloud of butterflies, and the beautiful woman who lives in a gothic horror house, and the most beautiful woman in the world who ascends to heaven like an angel, and the Colonel who starts wars because of pride, the little gold fishes, the father under an almond tree, babies with pigs tails, the passion and the lack of passion, you have to read this book to understand all of this, and I guarantee it will change your life.
Rating:
Summary: An escape from reality
Review: What a journey and what fun. You will regret when it is over.
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