Book Reviews of Love in the Time of Cholera

What a waste of a month of my free time.
I'd have finished it sooner but it was a chore.
Newsweek called it "A love story of astonishing power." I call it one long old man's fantasy dreamlife and nothing more.

I tried to enjoy this book but it was a very slow read for me. I guess it's not my type of book.

I can't believe all of the hype over this book. It was boring, and I am not encouraged to read any more of GGM's books.

Was not to impressed with this book. It drug on & on. Perhaps someone else will enjoy it, so it's posted as of now!

I just could not get into this book. I didn't like the style of writing, I found it boring to read. Didn't even finish the book.

I kept waiting for this book to get better but it just didn't. I finished it and was disappointed. It was like a bad soap opera written by a man's perspective.

Wow, that was a transportation to a different world! Very unuasual! I liked it.

"Love in the Time of Cholera" tells the story of two men and the strong willed woman they both fall in love with, in the process taking us to a different world in a different era, namely the Caribbean at the turn of the century.

All in all, this is a good novel, and I would recommend it

Lush writing, eye candy for readers of less complicated literary prose. While I can't honestly say that I grew to fully care for any of the characters (finding them self-absorbed, narcissistic beings), I immensely enjoyed much of the journey. The epic nature of the tale lends itself to lush visual imagery, the writing is immeasurably beautiful, and the author's peculiar story of not very likable people is engaging from beginning to end.

As a story with a point of any kind? Not so much. In essence: a humble looking man who lives with his mother falls in love, by letter-writing campaign, with a young girl he has never spoken to. Her father sends her away, but the young lovers continue their written affair. The young lady changes her mind and marries a doctor who seems like a decent man, she also buys a trash-talking parrot. The young man has uncommitted sex with lots of women over the next 50 years, but waits for the now-old young lady to become available again. Of course her old husband dies from a fall while trying to throttle the escaped parrot, and the old sex addict, whose current paramour is a little girl of whom he is guardian, resumes his quest - successfully. The little girl commits suicide. He tries to feel bad about it, but cannot.

I also enjoyed 100 years of solitude and
Chronicle of a Death Foretold

It started out slow and boring for me and I kept hoping it would get better. It didn't! I kept going back to it after reading other books and just decided it wasn't worth it. Never finished it.

Good read.

Love the mixture of the real and the surreal/SA folklore/superstitions in Marquez's writing--it is lyrical.

<< Back to Book Details of " Love in the Time of Cholera"