I've been trying to read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez. (Almost reaching the anniversary) .Pushed through half of the book.
My gripe with the book is… When a plot gets interesting and i think.. this is it , the plot is moving and then bam! It ends right there and another plot(charachter) begins. Honestly i find each plot interesting on its own but it gets frustrating.
Say i get invested in a character and their journey and then it ends abruptly. I fold the book , shelf it and pick it up again months later , repeat the cycle.
Also, i think the best story/characters for me just passed through the past pages. And they are gone gone.
Does it get better? I'm wondering if I should push through and finish it, or just shelf it.
by Second2breakfast
9 Comments
No, the book is the book, and if you don’t like the beginning and early middle, you probably won’t like the rest.
It’s not always about the destination, it’s about enjoying the journey.
I’ve heard it’s a slog. So, I’m not going to read it myself.
I DNFd it. Def didn’t do it for me.
If I find myself having to force myself to read anything, I just shelve it. Life is too short for books I don’t find joy in reading.
I couldn’t get into it either. Didn’t finish it.
If you don’t like the first half you probably won’t like the second half. It’s one of those books that is more about the overall vibe than it is about any of the specific characters and their individual plots. It helps if you think about it more as the story of a place than a story about people.
I read the entire book and found it dragged at the beginning, middle and end. Life’s too short and there are too many good books to waste time on ones you don’t enjoy.
I think you have to be in the mood for it. But I loved his signature magical realism. If you want to try another much shorter Gabriel García Márquez book, maybe try Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It’s brilliant.