Rating: 
Summary: Failed to live up to my expectations
Review: After hearing so much about this book, I expected a lot. Alas, I found it to be pondersome and long. I was amazed at how many pages the author could devote to the more or less unchanging emotions of Ariza, the protagonist. No less impressive was the untiresome attention to the pain of ageing. In summary, there were too few characters, and they seemed to me (excepting one) to be rather static when one considers the book takes place over 60 years.
On the plus side, it was interesting to read about a time and place I'm fairly unfamiliar with. The story is set in the sultry Caribean.
Rating: 
Summary: Reality ever after
Review: Throw out all your preconditioned notions about love. Disregard Hollywood's fictional depiction of love being all fun and no work. Ignore the assumption that there is someone out there for you who is your perfect mate and you cannot rest until you find him or her. Put aside all your ideas about love being the most pure, romantic and definite feeling. Forget about happily ever after. Welcome to reality; welcome to Love in the Time of Cholera.
This novel takes place at the turn of the twentieth century in a small town in Colombia. It is about a quest for love for two people never meant to experience it. One tries to find it anywhere in her life, whether it be with her family or her husband. And the other making it his lifelong mission to entertain the hope that he will be with his first love before he dies. The setting and time that this novel takes place creates an excellent background for a love story. In this small town where the walls do talk, and nothing you do is in secret, a forbidden love is unheard of. Everyone knows everything, and you have to be prepared to be held responsible for your actions by everyone you know. In a place where gossip is more dangerous than confrontations, love is not what it seems but what everyone pretends it is.
Though disquieting at times, this novel stretches the readers views on what love really means by taking it to every extreme. It explores every crevice in the human heart that love can sink into and make itself a home. At first, I rejected the associations that the
characters made with love. It is hard for me to comprehend the connections made with love between a pimp and his prostitute, or a corrupt father and his daughter. I did not see how infatuation with a married woman or marriage without feelings for each other, could all fit under the heading of love. They did not fit into my criteria for what I thought love was, and whom it should be shared by. By the end of the novel I realized that there are many more definitions and characteristics of what love is than I would ever get to experience.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a greatly celebrated author, makes unusual but
fascinating connections between love and death. During the cholera epidemic there was sickness and death, hopelessness and loneliness. He incorporates all the feelings of that environment into his story. Because of this, the novel has the reader's emotion bordering on hope and hopelessness, acceptance and rejection, love and hate, lucidity and insanity,
to the point where differentiating between them seems almost impossible.
You get to know the characters intimately. Recognizing the different situations and or predicaments each character is faced with helps to understand their actions and feelings. You learn about their fears, and also their motivations. Such as the revered Dr. Urbino, who convinces himself he is young by keeping the same routine and appearance from when he was twenty-five. His wife Fermina is not much better, having to convince herself that the life she chose was the one she actually wanted. And then of course there is her forever suitor, Florentino, whose only reason for living is to love. The reader is invited to take a peek into each of the characters' minds. A little bit of their history, their dreams and their reality is revealed by doing so. But only enough information is given. There is still more than enough room for readers to explore their own ideas on what is going on. Understanding who the characters are is a big part of this book. And aside from making it more interesting, it makes the story more personal and relatable to the reader. It is encouraging for the reader to know, whether they are a hopeless romantic or a cynic, that there are worse predicaments that love could have caused for them. It is also refreshing to see that there is always hope for things to get better.
It's in the title, this is a love story, but not like any you've ever heard before.
Rating:
Summary: Excellently written, but a mixed basket
Review: As a person who is not an avid reader, I found Love in the Time of Cholera to be very good. Marquez's style of writing may be difficult to swallow at first, but the storyline is easy to follow. Florentino falls madly in love with Fermina, but she marries the well-respected Dr. Urbino instead. Florentino experiences a roller coaster of emotions, but he holds onto the fact that Fermina will be his love. Someone may get lost or confused by the book because not everything happens in chronological order. I could not discern who the main characters were until the second chapter, but I could still follow the events taking place.
This book is definitely not a quick read because of Marquez's copious details. Several times I needed to take time and slow down to make sure that I read every word carefully. Marquez's fabulous detail makes the characters and their responses very believable. I found the description of the death of Dr. Urbino to be particularly superb: "Her recognized her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in a half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say with his last breath: 'Only God knows how much I loved you.'" It was effortless to pick up Florentino's lack of control over his emotions, Fermina's stubbornness, and Dr. Urbino's quiet and dignified personality. With such great development of characters, I tried to predict how they would act and react to turning points in the story.
In addition, I could empathize with the characters and their situations. It is hard not to respond with some sort of emotion since the book is packed with so many of them, especially in Florentino's case. He goes through so many vicious cycles of feelings, both highs and lows, but the cycle always ends with him thinking that he is saving himself for Fermina.
However, not everything in the books was to my liking. I believe fully that love should be reserved for the sanctity of marriage. Apparently, Florentino thinks quite the opposite since he is involved in hundreds and hundreds of affairs during the fifty-one years he is supposedly waiting for Fermina. And one of the affairs mentioned specifically is with a fourteen year old girl who is in his care. Marquez also uses great detail in scenes where Florentino is on his quests as a hunter of women, or birds as he called them. In the few affairs of Florentino that Marquez elaborates upon, he spares no detail from the point of Florentino meeting the woman at some rendezvous point until he leaves. I could have done without that. Maybe once would be acceptable, but not once for every different person.
With so many actions happening because of and in the name of love, both good bad, the book weaves a rich tapestry of the meaning of love. There could be as many interpretations of love from this book as there are pages. For example, love is what you make of it, good or bad, and you cannot wait for love to come to you. You will definitely get something out of this book on the subject of love, maybe positive, maybe negative.
In summary, I highly recommend this book, mainly because the events are easy to follow. In addition, it is masterfully written with incredible detail, and the characters are very believable. However, some parts of the book I personally did not care for, but that is just my preference. I would recommend that other people read this book because it is so densely packed with emotions and ideas on the subject of love that it is amazing. Be sure to take time and read carefully.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Book Of All Times
Review: "Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez."As I finished reading this book I understand many things that occur in life that sometimes people take for granted, or those little thing that we don't seem to care for or to bother with. I also realized the importance of respect and love as well. I say this in regards to the partner one chooses to be with, for example in this book I'm referring to Fermina and Dr. Juvenal Urbino, as well as Jeremiah D'Saint Amour and his mistress. Both very honest love and have respect for one another which is very important to have and understand. Another part I enjoyed very much in regards to feelings is the innocent, profound, and unconditional love that Florentino Ariza had towards Fermina Daza throughout the whole book. This is one of the books I've read that I enjoyed to the fullest. Another different aspect presented in this book was loyalty and also in a way superstition. Loyalty was presented between the relationship of Jeremiah D'Saints Amour and his dog. That's what I meant when I said that sometimes we don't notice those little things in life that are important as well. There was also loyalty with Jeremiah D'Saint Amour and his mistress and this is because of her being with him in secret and as long as she was by his side meant keeping it a secret then she was willing to do it for love, for Jeremiah. It's amazing the love example, or should I say stories that Gabriel Garcia Marquez brought upon the characters in this novel. There was also superstition and a bit of coincidence. I'm talking about the significance of the natural world. Specifically when in the novel it rains when it was never done so in the Pentecost. Amazing how one change in our nature can also change something else in one's life? One particular thing I liked very much was the way Gabriel Garcia Marquez described scenery or a specific area in the novel. Sometimes he would describe far to much, but as reading in a way I felt like I would read and put the words into a picture that I made in my mind and thoughts. I may sound crazy but it's the way I got through this book. In a way I understood it better by picturing it. I hope other people do it as well it's a way of understanding better sometimes. Well at lease for me it has been. Honestly his is a very good novel to read.
Humor was another aspect presented in this novel, especially when it came to Dr. Urbino with his not liking animals but he does like a parrot he has. Along with the humor came irony which was when Dr. Urbino helped the parrot from the tree but then again what happened to him not liking any animals? Ironic huh? Another very funny part in the novel was the reason when Fermina and Dr. Urbino got into an argument and stop talking for months. Funny as well as childish in a way.
Rating:
Summary: Travel back in time...
Review: I've had this book on my shelf for several years and decided to finally dive in. Although the writing helped to transport me back in time and I truly enjoyed the story, it was a little difficult to follow at times. I felt that he should have made chapter endings rather than jumping to another topic in the middle of the page. Otherwise, I truly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Tapestry of love, repression, sex, nostaligia
Review: 51 years, 9 months, 4 days - which was how long Florentino had waited. Fifty-one years ago, Fermina Daza felt madly in love with Florentino Ariza. The affair was made possible only through her aunt's complicity. But under her father's tight regime and thus his intransigence of her love affair, Fermina eventually broke all ties with Florentino and married Dr. Juvenal Urbino, a wealthy, eminent doctor who merited in fighting cholera along the Caribbean coast by implementing stringent measures. What followed Fermina's denial of his love was an austerely beautiful story of unrequited love that had still not ended half a century later. They were two people, ambushed by death, who no longer had anything in common except the distant memory of an ephemeral past that was no longer theirs but belonged to two young people who had vanished with no vestige. Heartrending but not forlorn, it was during this long period of time (almost all his life) that Florentino changed his entire being. He whiled the years away by engaging in 622 affairs and maintained some link with his lovers but reserved his heart for the irreplaceable Fermina. The idea of substituting one love for another carried him along surprising paths that permitted him to find solace in other hearts for his pain. Florentino, whose only point of reference in his own life was the love affair with Fermina, made a fierce decision to win fame and fortune in order to deserve Fermina. In his demented passion, he did not even consider the obstacle of her being married to the doctor but regarded it an ineluctable event that he resolved to wait without impatience or petulance, even till the end of time. When meeting the doctor, he could not bear the pangs of grief at the thought that the admirable man would have to die in order for him to be happy. Florentino understood both he and the doctor were poignantly subjected to the ineluctable fate of loving the same woman. As the bell tolling resonated citywide for Doctor Juvenal Urbino, who died of a broken spine when he fell from the branch of a mango tree catching a parrot, death had interceded on his behalf after half a century of longing and imbued him the courage to repeat his vow of everlasting love to Fermina. So he planned to attend the funeral... Love in the Time of Cholera is a tapestry of the complicated human emotions: love, repression, nostalgia, sex, concupiscence, and pride. It is a tale of morbidly repressed love, of passion, of obsession, and of indomitable longing and fulfillment. Garcia Marquez, with an incredulously detached voice and matter-of-fact manner, slowly unfolds the story with succulent details and lyrical exuberance. Piercing fluidity and precision of words accentuate the beauty of prose. Peripheral characters are no less etched and are vividly limned to the essence of their thoughts and emotions. The book is riddled with an air of melancholy and repression that is held redeemable by an undying hope. 2004 (14) ©MY
Rating:
Summary: A Bit of a Drag
Review: I have enjoyed Marquez's short stories and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" does have its merits. This book is something of a drag. It starts well and seems to be going somewhere, but by around page 200 you can tell that the author is just doing what is necessary when plot and ideas begin to run out: a lot of detailed but ultimately pointless filler. Give it a shot. If you start to lose it around half way through, you may want to give it up.
Rating:
Summary: Love this book!!
Review: I was a little hesitant about starting LITTOC because I'd never read Gabriel García Márquez before. I didn't know what to expect when started reading, but I was pleasantly surprised by his quirky characters. What reeled me in from the beginning is the fact that it's not your normal everyday love story.
Rating:
Summary: Think in Writing
Review: Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is not the typical love story a reader would expect to find. Marquez writes a story of many different types of loves, mostly experienced by the passionate yet sometimes perverse character, Florentino Ariza. However, one the more powerful aspects of the novel is the strength and individuality of our female protagonist, Fermina Daza, that is not always found in the women of our most ideal love stories. In this novel, the man waits for the woman who rejected him over half a century before they meet again. Fermina grows old married to a man who only learned to love her after they were married; Florentino grows old by becoming a higher person in society and living a secret sinful life with different lovers and an unacceptable sexual appetite. It goes without saying that Florentino lived his life for the love of his life while loving many others and ironically enough appearing to remain a virgin for Fermina in his own way.
Not only does Marquez write a story of love, but also a story of age that makes us ask ourselves if at a certain point, humans stop loving. Loving in the sense of having the desire for someone else. In the times of their youth, they courted only through letters and it wasn't until over half a century later that they were finally together and lived a more realistic relationship than the one they aspired for in the time of their youth.
Marquez uses such a detailed and descriptive way of the writing that once the last page is read, you find yourself wondering whether it took your breath away or if its randomness leaves you trying to put all its details together.
Rating:
Summary: an intricate portrait of words
Review: this truly was a beautifully written masterpiece. if you are into quick reads this is not for you, it took me...a month to read this (on and off)...but it was worth it. reading this book makes you feel like you are stepping into a different world. i could smell the cafe con leche, feel the humidity, see the aged buildings and cobblestone roads. when fermina daza cries i cried, the mark of a good book, is when you're able to feel all the emotions of the characters. it was an amazing story, and i believe that the ending, the very last page, is one of the greatest endings ever written. marquez successfully tells a story of half a century, in perfect pace, and captures the very essence of love. in a word ..it's breathtaking
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