Is it love though?... What is love? I don’t really think this is love. This is a book about time not love. Time and its effect. The ‘love’ here is a vehicle to show us how time changes people.

I think it’s a sad book but a very realistic one: the impurities and imperfections of life and love - learning to make do, controlling people, being governed by fears and emotions, transient happiness, being shot, buffeted and ricocheting through life like a pinball until an errant parrot brings about one’s demise.

As my fifth (maybe sixth?) Marquez, I feel qualified to say his books can go one of two ways: brilliance or bore-fests. I have enjoyed such works as ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ and ‘Voyage of the Shipwrecked Sailor’ but also hated ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ and now this. Partly I put it down to not being particularly romantic or liking fantasy but more so with this novel I just wanted to shake self-awareness into the characters. Granted, at the time the book was set, tradition and family pressures were rife, but I found it relatively infuriating that most of the characters spent their time pretending they were happy, oblivious they were unhappy or chasing idealistic ideas of happiness.

As a chronicle of time, I think it was really well done and brilliantly showed how time catches up with all of us (hence 2 stars not 1!) but ultimately not for me Gabriel, sorry, 2/5. ( )

Started out well, but as I read the book, I lost empathy for Florentino as he changed from a lovelorn dreamer to a stalker, predator, and pedophile. ( )

Evocative of time and place though a bit farfetched especially regarding unrequited love character. I can vividly emember many of the scenes and characters from the book. Too bad I didn't write a detailed review just when I had just finished it. ( )

Started out slow and authors style is hard to get used to at first. It’s not a quick read by any means. Paragraphs are long. But ultimately it turned out ok ( )

I wanted to like this so bad but it was truly a slog. This is one that I had to turn to an audiobook for because it was making not want to read anymore. And I tore through One Hundred Years of Solitude. I would really love to have someone who loved it explain to me why it is something that is so widely and publicly commended.Basically, if you like things that move quickly, absolutely avoid this book. If you like to torture yourself like me, give it a try. I had to give it three stars because it wasn't trash, but I cannot in good conscience give it four and put it up there with books I actually enjoyed. ( )