Rating: 
Summary: Simply the BEST....
Review: Attential all authors - STOP WRITING! - GIVE UP - there is nothing more to do! This fabulous book opens up insights into the human condition that no other book of philosopy or religion can do. With a masterful yet masculine voice, Marquez manages to speak about love in a universal way which is not soppy - (or threatening to men!) but reveals the innermost desires, hopes and anguish of every beating heart on the planet. Simply a genius opus...get it and live more deeply!
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm....
Review: Well, when I began this book I was a highschool freshman, and I found it extremely difficult. It's not because I read "young adult" books, that's not the case. I've read "Gone with the Wind", "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", "Rebecca", "Great Expecations", and the list goes on. I just found it kind of tasteless, but then again, I might not have given it enough time. Try it if you're ready for a difficult read!
Rating:
Summary: Monumental
Review: I read somewhere that the admirers of One Hundred Years of Solitude would be surprised to know that Gabriel Garcia Marquez has bettered it in the form of Love in the Time of Cholera. Well, although I found the latter half of it a little cloggy, I was a great admirer of One Hundred Years of Solitude. But after reading Love in the Time of Cholera, I think it's not fair to compare as different works of fiction as these two novels are, and it won't do any good to GGM as well. The only thing common to these two novels, however, is the prose of GGM. He weaves, with the dexterity of a master craftsman, small characters and trifle incidents into the vast fabric of his novels. Effortlessly moving from character to character and incident to incident, he provides small pegs and footholds to the reader so that he could ascend, like a rock-climber, to GGM's colossal literary monuments. This is especially true for Love in the Time of Cholera, where the reader is provided with a spectacular finale and one feels indeed like setting foot at the summit of Mount Everest after reading the novel. This is by far the best ending of a novel that I have read so far. There are dozens of important characters in Love in the Time of Cholera but I think the two most important protagonists are Love and Time. And both of them are so intricately interwoven together that sometimes it becomes difficult to tell which is which -- like two shrubs that run up the length of a tall tropical tree. The love of Florentino Ariza, a thin and shy boy, for the beautiful but whimsical Fermina Daza is unlike any in literature. And in order to have her, our hero must overcome time (half a century!), her aloofness and more than 400 love affairs! I guess even Hercules would have given up in face of these obstacles. Unlike many other great writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has little inhibitions. He is not ashamed of hiding emotions or sugarcoating his ideas; he simply does not believe in euphemisms. You can see everything in bare, harsh light: scars, warts, blemishes, all. Reminds one of . . . Life.
Rating:
Summary: A love story for realists.
Review: If you (like me) aren't a big fan of romance (the written, not real), this is the romance for you. Marquez beautifully wraps true love in reality. There are no tawdry soliloquies that make you think if the characters were in the real world they would fall to pieces from emotional convulsions. Marquez shows that un-requited love can be stored like a special memory. You can grow and love and Live, without being destroyed by what you don't have. But, it's not so true as to tarnish what love and adoration are. This is a fabulously, bizarrly, extrordinarily written book. It's a love story that will make you feel uplifted; not weepy.
Rating:
Summary: From the best writer in the world
Review: Arguably Marquez's best work. Many feel, "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" was, but I think that was before "Love In The Time of Cholera" was written. This book reads like a lyrical Shakespearian dream. It tastes like sweet wine and flows like poetry read to a lover on a hot sultry day under the shade of a 100 year old oak. It's a story of the unrequited love of a man who's desire for a woman will either kill him or save him. No one could possibly have written it with as much passion, drama, and sensitivity as Marquez. The closest an English writer comes to "One hundred Years" is D. H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" had Lawrence been a hot blooded Latin, but Englishmen just don't have the blood for it. This is a must read for those who consider themselves well read or aspire to be. Nothing sounds as intimate, inspiring, cerebral, or cool at a social gathering as an excerpt from this book.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST LOVE STORY EVER WRITTEN
Review: Mr. Marquez does for humans what Anne Rice did for Vampires. He brings to life human emotions like none other.
Rating:
Summary: MOST OF US COULD PROBABLY RELATE TO IT
Review: Have you ever been in the position where you're deeply infatuated with someone, but that someone is infatuated with someone else? If so, you're off to a good start when it comes to reading this book. The basic storyline is this: There is this woman, Fermina Daza. Then there is Florentino Ariza, who is crazy about her--he'll never forget her. To complete the trio is Juvenal Urbino, the man that Fermina later marries, much to Florentino's despair. There are lots of quotable and gee-whiz type things in this book. Here's some examples from the book: "The scalpel is the greatest proof of the failure of medicine." There's a part where it mentions how the Mexican soldiers would have to put the lit-end of a cigarette in their mouths so that the enemy couldn't see them smoking. A young man who is so knowledged about boats that he even knows the number of chain links attached to an anchor. Things like that. Marquez does an outstanding job of TAKING you to Mexico in that time. You don't just read about it. In fact, I found it very refreshing to read about a time of sitting on porches, taking walks, etc, instead of a time of ATM machines, euthanasia debates, and big-city hustle-bustle. But in the end, the one thing that will make you finish this book is the book-reader relationship that I mentioned earlier. I'd also try reading STORY OF A SHIPWRECKED SAILOR by the same author--it's a non-fiction piece. Overall, I think Marquez is a good writer, but his impact on me hasn't been as great as that of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine genius.
Rating:
Summary: Marquez soars....
Review: with a beautiful tale of love in South America at the turn of the century. All three of its main characters are succinctly drawn, and the reader can feel the process of aging and the changing of feelings and expectations as we proceed through the seasons of life. Minor characters that surround the love triangle are colorful and woven with great care into the story. Marquez must have known great loves and sustaining loves in his life to have captured all of its flavors here. With a truly satisfying ending, and historical reality threaded throughout the human experience, this is a great book of the 20th century. Read it as soon as you can; it is a treasure.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful story
Review: This is so much more than an incredible story of love. It's great to just see what the author has done and the wisdom that he has provided in the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Cholera por los Gringos
Review: What is cholera? What does "The Time of Cholera" stand for as a literary device, and how does Cholera affect Love? I am ignorant of love and death, but Marquez himself says of his lovers: "they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death." The story begins with the smell of cyanide, bitter almonds, unrequited love. Unrequited love, like cyanide or cholera, can kill BUT ONLY BY CHOICE. One may also endure and hope. (And drink plenty of fluids! Cholera toxin binds the GM1 ganglioside and makes fluids and electrolytes pour from the body. One dies excruiatingly of dehydration.) Dehydration: Love is like water, one must stay filled with both. Why was the lover, Florentino, head of a river boat company? The river was drying up, the manatees were dying, yet he still persisted on going up river flying the flag of quarantine. Death pervades. Death gives love permission to access magic. Through love and magic, the lover is spared death. Love becomes a vehicle to float one's craft above the waters in a desiccating land. "From the moment I was born, said Florentino Ariza, I have never said anything I did not mean." As for myself, I am the poor Dr. Juvenal Urbino, trying to cure cholera through medicine and proper sewer design, one hand on the ladder, green suspenders flapping in the air, being eyed by an evil parrot, mangoes out of reach, suspended over pavement with no hope of communion. But from the top of my ladder, I can see the riverboats, and give a final wave to salute the lovers who will soon sail upstream...and in that salute, the parrot soars free. Bueno. There is wind in my hair. P.S. Why has no one said how very funny is this magical work? If you doubt me, ask the parrot. He sits now atop the mango tree and takes his pick. He is Florentino Aziza with feathers.
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