All through high school and college, my Spanish teachers and professors raved about what a great author Gabriel García Márquez was, and that his novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude was truly a moving and fantastic piece of literature.

During the summer, I finally caved in and decided to see if this book was worth the praises.

At first, the book was a little hard to get into. It took me about three weeks to read the first 50 pages, which is very unusual for me. However, once I got past the beginning, I couldn't put the book down.

Márquez weaves fantasy into his tale about José Arcadio Buendía, one of founders of the town Macondo, and his extensive family. The novel chronicles the struggles and hardships that the family endures while surviving in Macondo.

War is a reoccurring theme throughout the novel and while the reader never knows what exact year it is, the principles behind the war are so universal that readers of almost any era can relate to it.

Also the way Márquez describes how various family members deal with death is powerfully written, and I couldn't help but sympathize with fictional characters.

It isn't until the end One Hundred Years of Solitude that the title of the book made sense to me, and everything came full circle.

However, one of the hardest things for me, is the fact every character in the book is named after one another, and that the characters live to be well over 100 years old. At any given time there are at least two characters with the names José Arcadio and Aureliano. There is a family tree in the beginning of the book, that helps to keep all the characters straight, and I flipped to the family tree at least four times per chapter.

Despite that fact, this novel is still worth reading. It may not be the easiest read, but it's definitely worth the time. Every once in awhile, my teachers prove me wrong and show me that classics are still worth reading. Grade: B

-- Review by Emma Straley