One Hundred Years of Solitude

I'm really pleased I read this book before Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away. He was a Nobel Prize-winning author, and most consider this work to be his finest. Marquez was a Colombian who wrote in an interesting genre known as magical realism, in which everyday events are interspersed with the wondrous and strange, yet it all is treated as perfectly normal. This blurry line between fantasy and reality lends a dreamlike quality to magical realism, and allows authors to explore diverse themes without being bound down by traditional literary conventions.
One Hundred Years of Solitude recounts the history of the founding, rise, and fall of a small town called Macondo, as seen through the eyes of the Buendia family. The book spans a hundred years and five generations, and within its pages Marquez has captured every facet of human life. There is  birth, death, joy, sorrow, victory, defeat, and always the persistent equalizing force of time. I was hugely impressed by the breadth of the novel, but also by its depth. Although Marquez covers a lot of ground, there are still characters who are well-developed and human, despite being fantastic and exaggerated at the same time.
All in all I found I enjoyed this book from a literary perspective, though I would never call it a page-turner. It was a bit tough to get through, but it was a rewarding read. I believe that with great literature you can feel some part of your soul being enlarged as you read. This is one of those books. I didn't always understand it, and I still have many questions about it, but I can feel  its weight and merit within me even if I didn't get everything I should have out of the book. This is an amazing literary achievement, and if you're in the mood for something that somehow manages to be both light and heavy at the same time, you'll probably find One Hundred Years of Solitude to be a fulfilling read.

Score:9/10
Read this book if: You are a true lover of great literature and are willing to slog through a few boring parts in order to feel like a deeper and more interesting person.
Don't read this book if: You have difficulty suspending disbelief when reading, or you prefer a book with a few strong central characters and a powerful plot that drives the story. The breadth of this book requires many plots and an enormous (and confusing) cast of characters.