Sunday, January 20, 2008

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Happy New Year fellow readers!

I recently read "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for my book club. I didn't finish it, but was filled in by Cynthia in my book club on the ending. This is currently the Oprah Book club selection. I have no idea why! The writing is all prose--not a lot of dialogue. This book has been translated from Spanish into English so we all wondered if there wasn't anything lost in translation. Apparently there wasn't. The plot didn't move forward in the middle of the book and the only reason I kept reading was for book club. The characters didn't have a lot of depth in my opinion--the main male character, Florentino was a pervert and obsessed with sex. He was promiscuous which all of us had a hard time with and when he finally ended back up with the woman he's loved for over 54 years, he complains about them both smelling "old." I didn't think this was a romantic story at all. Overall, I could have lived without reading this book.

I would not recommend that any of you read this book. I'm hoping that the reason Marquez won the Nobel prize is based on his other works.

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