Whoever said that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books are boring should try reading this book first. There is that perception that because his stories spans the characters’ lifetime, the book is generally boring. For me, they are a treat. His storytelling is impeccable.
The story is about that one and only true first love and the eternal waiting to be together. The most heartbreaking for me was the very first time Fermina Daza saw Florentino Ariza (really) up close and she realized that he's not the person she wanted to be in love it. She married another man and successfully put Florentino at the back of her life. But Florentino's persistence lasted more than half a century.
Love in the Time of Cholera is teeming with humor that sometimes border to hilarious but the reader has to read between the lines. I believe that Marquez is not someone who spoon-feeds his readers. The way he describes the misfortunes of Florentino Ariza is comical and sometimes sympathetic.
While Cholera doesn’t contain the magic realism evident in One Hundred Years of Solitude and his other books, it still carries the stamp of the author: Marquez is very meticulous with details. He can describe one event in three pages and I never felt it was three pages. He can jump from one timeline to another and I never got lost.
