A big part of the reason that I love this novel is that it was very difficult for me to get into it and to finally finish it, which is particularly embarrassing because someone I know had the same problem with One Hundred Years of Solitude and I gave them a lot of grief about it. If you are already a Gabriel Garcia Marquez fan, you probably already have read and love this novel, but if not I urge you to read all of it -- short stories, novels, and non-fiction. And this is not the novel to start with; you have to build up to Love in the Time of Cholera, but it is such a rich and rewarding experience, when you finally get there.