Love in the Time of Cholera

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That said, I’ve read quite a few good books this summer (and unfortunately a couple of duds as well) so I thought I’d share a few of the highlights with you today. Maybe you’re hitting the beach one last time before summer ends or maybe you’re spending some time at the pool before it closes after Labor Day, but wherever your plans may take you, if you’re looking for book recommendations here are some of my recent favorites!


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Fabio’s sister Diane bought this book for me when we were in Cartagena since the Nobel Prize-winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is one of her favorite writers. I actually already had the book on my “want to read” list, so I was thrilled when she offered to get it for me as a souvenir. The book also takes place in Cartagena, which made it really fun to read once our trip was over.

Aside from all of that, I loved this book so much because of Marquez’s absolutely beautiful writing. While the plot is definitely interesting, the highlights of this book for me were the vivid descriptions of the setting and the interactions between the characters. Marquez uses the most mundane details that most writers would skip over to paint a realistic picture of what life is actually like for these characters. His writing is so complex and detailed that I actually had a hard time getting into this book for the first few pages, but once I got into it I had a hard time putting it down. When the book was over I felt like I had actually gotten smarter from reading it, and I felt like I probably would never read another book again that was written so beautifully. This one can be summed up in one word: wow.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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This is another book that had been on my reading list for ages, and when I list to data decided to start reading it I honestly had no idea what to expect. This nonfiction book follows the journey of the author, Rebecca Skloot, as she uncovers the history behind Henrietta Lacks, a black woman living in 1950s Baltimore whose cells were taken from her unknowingly during a medical procedure, which wound up being a major contributor to medical science and helped find the cure to polio. Even today, most scientists have Henrietta’s cells in their labs, and they are still being used to find the cures to diseases like cancer and AIDS. The crazy part about this story is that even though Henrietta was a major contributor to modern day medical treatments, she was a poor black woman at the time (in fact her descendants are still poor today) and she had no clue her cells had even been taken from her by one of the only doctors who would treat black patients at the time.