Rating: 
Summary: amazing
Review: chronical is a truely amazing book filled with all sorts of irony and satire where every detail contains some meaning. in his portrayal of the small town's values, marquez really gets you thinking about society today and all of similarly ridiculous ideals. his journalistic writing style helps tremendously with reading the novel to as it keeps things interesting by revealing information a little a time and making it easy to read and understand. as a whole, chronicle is a fantasic book with a powerful message about the ideals by which we live our lives.
Rating:
Summary: Gender roles and personal beliefs examined in "Chronicle"
Review: Marquez's book Chronicle is a poignant novel and its relationship with real life events makes the story especially intriguing. Set in Columbia, the novel highlights the tradition of "machismo" and the strong Hispanic male ego. In this story a young Spanish-Arab womanizer has apparently messed with the wrong girl and will suffer the wrath of her family. Marquez, apparently touched by the actual death of a friend involving similar circumstances, chose to "report" on the issues of male and female roles withing society, especially focusing on the consequences of these stations. Murder, depression, and social exile are the result however instead of being ultimately depressing, the novel intrigues the reader and educates her through the journalistic style and detective-story subject matter. Never the less, the end result is a challenge of the social norms. AS readers we are forced to examine our own ideas of male and feamle roles. How would we act in the place of the different characters? Would we have tried to stop the forestold death? Or complacently watched like most other towns people? When faced with these questions, and others, hte reader becomes a participant in hte story not just a spectator and this is what makes the novel fascinating. Great for a book club!
Rating: 
Summary: Machismo Gone Wrong!
Review: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" is an interesting story written in the style of investigative reporting. The novel is not only an account of a murder which took place in January of 1957, but it is also a novel of manners, a satire, a mystery, and an initiation. The theme of this book, without giving the story away, is that life is determined by inexplicable forces and irrational acts. It seems that everyone knows about the impending murder yet is incapable of warning the future victim. In the small Latin American town whose daily routine is interrupted only once in a blue moon by a sea-borne Bishop, everyone knows everyone else. That's why Bayardo San Roman and his family made such a splash. He contrasts greatly to the other characters of the novel, in his extravagance and his demeanor. Another topic discussed in this book is machismo and the honor code. The conflict of the book stems from the long-past tradition of wedding night virginity and is resolved only by the vengeance of two twin brothers. The way this conflict is played out is at once disturbing and amazing to read: it seems impossible that the murder could happen under the circumstances. This book is frustrating for the reader only because one wishes he could run into the town and warn Santiago Nasar. This novel is filled with characters, major and minor, many of whose names are allusions and biblical references. I thought it was an interesting book, for being so short a lot happened. The technique that I liked the most in the novel was the way that Marquez peeled away layers of the story almost like an onion. Every time he would return to an event more details would be added, more problems would arise. I recommend it as a quick and easy book to read, suspenseful, and sometimes horrifying.
Rating: 
Summary: Who?
Review: After reading everyone else's review, some acted as if they had the whole novel figured out. I don't think it was that easy though. For example, the last sentence on page 53 where Angela gives Santiago's name to me leaves a lot of questions up in the air. Was she telling the truth about Santiago? Did she think she was protecting him because she thought her brothers wouldn't touch him? Or was she protecting the identity of another man altogether? To me that single sentence should be one's focus for thought while reading the novel. Even after looking very hard to support any of these ideas I still am not sure which one seems to fit best.
Rating:
Summary: No plot, Don't read for action, Read for message
Review: From page one, the entire plot is known. But, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a magician. A man is killed, so what? People knew before the murder, people knew while he was being murdered and locked their doors, people knew after the murder and were complacent. Garcia Marquez writes this novel 26 years later to say, "Hey, your wrong, you screwed up, you should be full of rage". He shows how indifferent an entire town is, despite a cold-blooded murder in which man was stabbed 14 times. Do you think that it is implausible for a town to ignore a murder threat, allow a man to be murdered, and give the murders only 2 years in prison? Think again, it could happen anywhere, that it what makes his message so thrilling.
Rating:
Summary: Las bocincheras siempre saben
Review: The circumstances surrounding the death of Santiago Nasar would be familiar to anyone who has witnessed those sectors of humanity where the concept of "honor" takes precedence over society, family, and life itself. You needn't search any farther than U.S. "saloon society" to find examples of men and women murdered over verbal or other insults, real or imagined. For me what makes this book unique is the author's dispassionate dissection of the crime in a style honed during his professional beginnings as a journalist in a country that has elevated journalism to an art and to this day continues to hold the profession in the highest esteem (while continuing to assassinate some of their finest journalists.) Some readers may overlook the universal appeal of the story, becoming mired in the descriptions of local/regional color. Colombia to this day has not changed. Arabs and other "immigrants" continue to provide much impulse to the arts and economy of the nation. Costeños (and Colombians in general) like the Vicario ("sicario!") brothers continue to talk smack, often letting their words get them into situations where they are forced to act in a violent manner or risk being killed themselves. "Shoot first and ask no questions" is the unwritten rule; accumulation of material wealth and the flaunting of the same take precedence over society and family values. Whether "Turks," "Arabs" or "Gringos," foreign elements continue to be blamed for the country's own deeply rooted social problems. Until Colombians of every stripe face the facts and accepts the consequences of their own actions and those of their fellow countrymen, the country will continue to recede into a netherworld of violence and stifled progress. It is truly ironic that those who would shed a tear over the death of Santiago Nasar would simply shrug or casually dismiss the daily slaughter of hundreds of their fellow citizens in a "civil war" devoid of ideology, that has everything to do with the pursuit of wealth and power at the expense of life, dignity and the pursuit of happiness. It's no mystery why Garcia Marquez, one of Colombia's most talented and renowned offspring has for several years lived in exile from his beautiful and fascinating but deeply troubled homeland.
Rating:
Summary: Not as simple as it seems
Review: This is not a mystery/suspense book but exactly what its title suggests: a chronicle. The actual death and its reasons or consequences are not its main themes. Its attraction lies on the fascinating blending of different life stories intersected by a murder. No judgement is passed, this was not meant to be a social essay. It's the interwoven lives of the main heroes and the villagers, each one's contribution to the pattern of an otherwise simple plot that make this book so rich and so ingeniously conceived.
Rating:
Summary: aaahhhhhh!
Review: Well...... once again as many others i was forced to read this much to my ismay. and i still to this day (well..... 4 days after reading it). Don't have a clue what wen't on a why it is such a "excellent" book. My trouble was probably the fact it was in spanish and i as many of the younger generation had seen teh film before. and as any one knows some takes the pleasure away when reading it.!
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing yet enthralling
Review: Even though i knew from the beginning of the book that Santiago Nasar was going to be murdered, i still wanted him to survive and was hoping that somehow the ending would change. The thing that makes this book disturbing is the unexplainable coincedences and the way friends can do nothing to stop the death of Santiago. The most disturbing part was when Santiago's mother was the one who unknowingly closed the door in front of her son cutting off his escape.
Rating:
Summary: Garcia-Marquez explains the impossible.
Review: A frighteningly plausible chain of circumstances keeps Santiago Nasar from escaping his death. Characters that could easily be YOUR friends and neighbors fail to warn him. It is the story of the sins of omission committed by an entire town, and the unwitting victims of an inescapable fate. Though his end is described in the beginning of the novel, somehow the author maintains suspense and intense interest by disclosing various details and twists until finally the reader is made to understand how such a death could take place.
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