One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Anos de Soledad)
Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Genre: Ethnic Mind-bender
Rating: Thumbs almost down, pg-13.
What I like: More like what I didn't like. Trust me the book is very long and it feels like it takes a hundred years to read it. Honestly though, there is a constant sadness to this book with the main characters being a family unit. The mythical place of Macondo is intriguing and Marquez does a great job of describing detail but the labyrinth that is the story can be frustrating. In some editions there is a family tree to help the reader discern which person the author is talking about. Many of the male characters have the same name and it can be difficult to know what place in time or which person Marquez is speaking of...the ending is what makes it such a mind-bender.
Synopsis: The novel chronicles a family's struggle and the history of their fictional town, Macondo. Although the title implies that the story spans one hundred years, it is unclear exactly how much time the narrative covers. This ambiguity contributes to the novel's treatment of time, as there is a notion that time lapses, repeats, changes speeds, or stops altogether at different parts of the story, and that all the events in some sense happen simultaneously.