One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Considering the fact that this book is a Nobel Prize winner, I’m not exactly reviewing it (yeah, um, two thumbs up, a ten—whatever). But I do want to say that I loved it. Because Márquez writes in omniscient third person, I had a harder time getting into it at first (I’m partial to 1st person, or at least third person limited). However, his character sketches paint these amazing people who are strong and flawed and hilarious and sometimes just weird. I love the whole “laughter through tears” (to use a Steel Magnolias) phrase—laughing, laughing at all the crazy antics then realizing how tragic it is, the fall of this character. My favorite part in the whole book was a two and a half page rambling of this nagging wife. Two and half pages of one sentence—One Sentence!—so that you feel this rambling and when the husband interrupts her two and a half pages later (not even rudely but to correct one of her trails), you want to kiss him and thank him. (And then she picks up her rant and goes on for another page or so with the next sentence.) That was my favorite part. I knew these people. I knew this village. The last 50 pages dragged on, though, after the matriarch dies. I felt like nothing mattered, the village was lost, once Úrsula dies (don’t worry, I’m not giving anything away with this news), but maybe that’s how I’m supposed to feel. Genesis themes, Exodus themes, even parts that reminded me of Judges. The building of a nation (in one village). An insight into the human race. Seriously, people, go read this book.