Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies

Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate" is a dreamy, gauzy tale, a celebration of life that ends in ecstatic death. The prose is matter-of-fact and often instructive, as when Esquivel writes directions for cooking traditional dishes or making home remedies at a Mexican ranch over 100 years ago. This is interspersed with slang expressions that jar, seeming too contemporary for the setting.

At one level, the book seems almost a parody of itself and the reader could laugh out loud at the transposition of inexplicable, allegorical happenings and the prosaic description of cooking and ordinary days.

One another level, the reader is swept away by dream-like images, a "wishing makes it so" reality in which feeling, and thinking, can affect people and events. (Note: Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief" must be heavily applied!)

The lead character, Tita, is brought vividly to life; the reader knows her in full. The other characters are much more sketchily depicted, especially Tita's love, Pedro, who remains a cipher. Pedro is magnetically drawn to Tita by sexual desire; Esquivel doesn't give the reader any other basis for their relationship.

In the end, sex and death bind Tita and Pedro together in erotic euphoria. Romantic readers will relish this book. Others may find it strange and at times, even unintentionally funny.

The characters in this book are in a trance when they eat--just like you will be as you read. Absolutely wonderful, conveying the beauty of tight-knit traditional families in Hispanic culture. I knew when I first read it that it would eventually have to be made into a movie. The movie is very good also (even with subtitles), but of course the book is always better!

"Like Water for Chocolate" is a fun book that mixes fantasy story-telling with a love story -- and throws in an authentic Mexican recipe with each chapter! It's a little bizarre, but it's just a lot of fun to read and the recipes look delicious.

The story is about a Mexican girl who has been told that since she is her mother's youngest daughter, she can never marry. She must take care of her mother until her mother dies. As a result, she spends most of her time growing up in the kitchen and becomes a magnificent cook.

As fate would have it, she meets a young man and falls in love. When the young man (Pedro) asks for her hand in marriage, he's told that Tita cannot marry but he can marry her sister. Pedro does just that in order to stay close to Tita. This love affair lasts throughout their lives.

Highly recommended. This classic can be read in 1 day.

When I first picked up this book, I'd heard of the movie, but had never seen it. I knew that this was a story of romance, that somehow involved cooking, but knew nothing more. So it was much to my delight that the book turned out to be a complete revelation.
The way Laura Esquivel describes Tita's love of Pedro and her passion for food, almost makes you want to grab the nearest man, and rush headfirst into the kitchen. And even though this book was originally published in Spanish, the language used in the English translation is rich and textured. You can feel the heat, hear the sounds of the kitchen, and smell the sauce bubbling on the stove, as our heroine (Tita) pours all her blood, sweat and tears into each dish.
Like Water For Chocolate is tragically sweet, but incredibly satisfying. Tita's gentle strength resonates throughout the story. And instead of feeling sorry for her, you can only admire this young woman, who is doing the best she can, with the circumstances that she's been given.

Zara Stevens (Author - Boy Meets Girl: A Pocketful of Wedding Stories)Boy Meets Girl: A Pocketful of Wedding Stories

How to describe this book? It's just one of the most beautiful stories I've read. This is not an action-adventure story, although there are moments of both, it's a story about family and food mostly. Almost from the minute this story began I was enthralled.