Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

[blistermoth]

I'm two-thirds of the way through it (in preparation for a book group I'm leading on Tuesday) and I've never hated a book major characters as much as these. Does the book get any better in the last third or is this Oprah pick the most overrated book ever?

Comments

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

if you do not like it now, you're not going to like it later.

[beatnik-bttrfly.livejournal.com]

I agree with chaptal. Does a book's goodness depend on its characters' likeability? I'm just curious, not baiting or anything (even though it totally sounds like I am)!

[blistermoth.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I may have misspoke. I've loved books where I don't like the characters. Maybe here it's more of a case of not caring what happens.

[beatnik-bttrfly.livejournal.com]

So, it's less an issue of likeability than of investment - namely that the impetus to invest doesn't occur?

I would agree with that re this particular novel - Marquez is truly one of my favorite contemporary novelists, but I was never terribly concerned for the characters in Cholera.

[beatgirl.livejournal.com]

I could not finish it. I started that book twice, the second time was after watching Serendipity and still, no dice. Oprah did that summer of Faulkner thing too. I tried to promote it at the library. FAIL!

[melissa52677.livejournal.com]

I have not read it, but from what I've heard, I think it is of the anti-hero genre.