Review by blueberryhotel - Love in the Time of Cholera

blueberryhotel 's review for:

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

2.0

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

i’m honestly shocked at how much i didn’t care for this book lol. it didn’t really grip me and i kept hoping it was going to grow on me but then i was ~20 pages from the end and disliking the characters more than ever. florentino ariza, who most of the book centers around, is an insufferable incel type (at first) who then becomes a sleazy womanizer. at no point did i empathize with his fruitless quest of pining his entire life over a woman who rejected him when they were teenagers. i also just didn’t really care for the format of following these characters for their entire (largely uninteresting) lives. i guess i understand the merit of exploring the mundanities of a lifespan, and the indecencies of old age, but this particular narrative failed to make me care about these things. also i know it was a “different time” or whatever so i guess kudos to márquez for characterizing fermina daza as SO stubborn, indignant, and cold as opposed to submissive, but

that makes it so hard to believe she would suddenly turn on a dime in her opinion of florentino ESPECIALLY after he interrupts her grieving to make his plea for her love all these decades later??? sorry i know the idea is that they changed so much over their lives that they could meet anew as lovers without the baggage of the past but it just doesn’t feel believable when 90% of the book is spent building up fermina’s indifference to/distaste for florentino. and speaking of florentino. the last 50 pages or so of the book contain a disgusting side plot of him grooming and sexually abusing a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD CHILD when her parents entrust her to his care. at this point he’s at least in his 70s. again, very difficult to believe this teenage girl is enchanted by this decrepit man whose defining feature at this age is how often he uses enemas. which reminds me there is also a scene in which he so graphically shits himself while attempting to win back fermina daza that i thought i was being trolled.

overall nothing kept me going but thinking there would be some sort of redemption arc or interesting resolution that never came.

Content Warnings