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Florentino Ariza falls madly in love with Fermina Daza when they are teenagers. Their love is forbidden and Fermina's father does everything he can to keep them apart, eventually succeeding. Fermina marries a wealthy doctor - Dr. Juvenal Urbino - but Florentino is determined that one day he and Fermina will be together again. After fifty-one years, nine months and four days, Florentino gets his chance to win back the love of his life.


Pros

• A timeless love story connecting to any generation.
• Masterfully written translation from original Spanish.

Cons

• Extensively detailed sometimes to a fault.
• Much of the book is building the back story of the love affair.

Description

• First published in 1988.
• 348 pages in paperback.
• Translated by Edith Grossman.
• Published by Vintage International, a division of Random House.
• Chosen by Oprah on October 5, 2007 as her 59th selection.

Guide Review - Book Review : 'Love in the Time of Cholera'

While Love in the Time of Cholera is a beautifully written book by a Nobel Prize winning author, I found it difficult to get through. The voice of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the novel is in the third person omniscient where we get the story from all three of the main characters: Florentino Ariza, Fermina Daza and Dr. Juvenal Urbino. While this style helped to get the full picture from each person and a background of each, it prevented me from really connecting to either Fermina or Florentino and I was left with a desire to know how their relationship turned out, but I wasn't emotionally invested in either character.

The story of a young love in a Caribbean town in the 1800s is the foundation of this novel that develops over more than 50 years - following the lives of the 3 characters and how they interact through the years. Each of the characters faces challenges and we are able to watch them struggle and grow, learning more about themselves over time. Wanting to know what would happen with Fermina and Florentino is what kept me reading, even though it took time to get through Marquez's artistic writing.

When Oprah announced the book on her show, she revealed that ""This is one of the greatest love stories I have ever read... It is so beautifully written that it really takes you to another place in time and will make you ask yourself how long could you, or would you, wait for love?"

Oprah had selected One Hundred Years of Solitude also by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to be featured in her book club in 2004. After the controversy over James Frey's memoir A Million Little Pieces being part fiction, Oprah began to choose works from more well known authors or classics, instead of unknown authors as she had done in the past.