I had a hard time with this book. I fell in love with the beauty of Garcia Marquez's writing very quickly, but didn't take too much longer to find the stupidity of most of the characters and the incomprehensibility of many of their actions grating. The fabulous prose kept me reading, albeit slowly and in short bursts, until about 3/4 of the way through the book suddenly it all fell into place for me, and I fell wholly in love with the book--story, characters and all--from that point until the deeply affecting ending.

I'm not sure I want to read another long novel by Garcia Marquez, because there were too many times in the middle when I was about to give up, but this has made me very keen to read some of his short stories and journalism.