One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I started reading this book in 2011. 2011! A decade ago! I started reading it after I read Love in the Time of Cholera, also by Marquez, and I loved it so much. (I don't remember anything about it, so I should probably re-read it... but I do remember that I loved it so much I cried at some point.) So I wanted to read this one too... but I got a few pages into it and just couldn't get past it. And I tried again multiple times over the years. So I finally decided to see if I could do it on audiobook--and guess what, that did the trick. The only way I was able to get through this was on audio, on double speed--because I did not like this at all. I don't have enough time right now to describe my issues with this book, but I'll just say this. 

1. Incest everywhere. 

2. Everyone's names were the same. Literally every character was named after the other characters so there was no way to tell them apart. 

3. What was even happening?

I read about Marquez's dream reality, where things are supposed to appear dream-like and to not make much sense... and that definitely was happening. I think this was a book I could have gotten more out of if I were reading it for a class and given some introduction to the theory behind it and the movement and what the point of it was--but as it was, listening to it on my own, I just gave up trying to understand and just listened to the story. It was really wild and crazy and not really my cup of tea. But everyone says it's a Very Important Work of Literature so it must be... so I'm glad I finished it and I'm glad I'll never read this again. (The one thing that I was interested in was the fact that the banana plantations coming in and taking over the towns actually happened in Central American countries, so I want to read more about the history of that.)