Love in the Time of Cholera half century between 1880 and 1930. The city's "steamy and sleepy streets, rat-infested sewers, old slave quarter, decaying colonial architecture, and multifarious inhabitants" are mentioned variously in the text and mingle amid the lives of the characters. Locations within the story include: Some critics choose to consider "Love in the Time of Cholera" as a sentimental story about the enduring power of true love. Others criticize this opinion as being too simple. García Márquez himself said in an interview, "you have to be careful not to fall into my trap." This is manifested by Ariza's excessively romantic attitude toward life,
The Time Traveler's Wife two people can feel as if they've known each other their entire lives". Robert Nathan's "Portrait of Jennie", as novel, or film, is another obvious comparison, although Jennie, as a ghost, travels time in one direction, not randomly. Elements of the plot, particularly the list, bear comparison with Heinlein's 1941 By His Bootstraps, and in turn, with River Song's diary in the long-running, British sci-fi show Doctor Who. Niffenegger identifies the themes of the novel as "mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time". Reviewers have focused on love, loss, and time. As Charlie Lee-Potter writes in "The Independent", the novel