Written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the novel Love in the Time of Cholera deals with a passionate man's unfulfilled love and his quest of more than 50 years to win the heart of his true love. It's without question one of the most emotional depictions of love, but what separates it from similar novels is its suggestion that lovesickness is a literal disease, a plague comparable to cholera.

The novel's main character is Florentino Ariza, an obsessive young man who falls madly in love with a young girl named Fermina Daza. After a brief affair in which they see each other only in passing, Florentino gets rejected by Fermina. Florentino literally becomes sick and when his mother, Transito Ariza, finds his son in a pool of vomit, she reminds him that "the weak would never enter the kingdom of love, which is a harsh and ungenerous kingdom, and that...