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

The story really pulled at my heartstrings. Great romance.

I liked this book! It was filled with emotions, you could taste, smell, feel and see the characters lives unfolding. I liked the magical touch too. If you liked this book you might also enjoy " The Mistress of Spices"

Deception, romance, heartbreak, and yes, even food. All the elements of a soap opera and much more. Like Water For Chocolate is a deceptively simple book - a love story set in Mexico, combined with recipes, related in unadorned, uncomplicated language. The story centers around Tita and Pedro, two lovers who are unable to marry because of Tita's family obligations. As the youngest daughter, Tita's place in life is to care for her elderly mother, Mama Elena. Tita's forbidden to marry her love, and instead, Mama Elena offers her older daughter to Pedro. He accepts, not out of love, but out of the desire to remain physically close to Tita. Heartbroken, Tita is forced to bake the wedding cake. Her cooking is done with such passion and despair, that the wedding guests are overcome with sadness as they taste the cake. From this, Tita discovers that her baking has strange effects on those who partake of it. Interwoven throughout the narrative are the recipes, which provide an ongoing description on the characters and their culture. This book has more spice than a pot of chile! Finally, there is the food itself that Tita creates as head cook on the family ranch, food so vibrant and sensual, infused with her feelings of longing, frustration, rebellion, or love. This book triggers all the senses and gives readers a newfound appreciation of real home-made cooking. The combination of all these elements, with a good measure of the supernatural thrown in, makes for an earthy, quirky book, sad and funny, passionate, and direct, told by Tita's grand-niece who follows in her footsteps, using her cookbook and continuing a tradition quite different from the one her great-grandmother tried to impose.
The forbidden love between Tita and Pedro just makes for more of an exciting plot. Your heart jumps just reading about their overnight escapades and secret meetings. The risk and the measures they take to be with each other really makes you think about the lengths one will go to for true love. It's a heart warming story that will keep you guessing all the way. In a way, this story is like a Cinderella story. Tita is forced to take care of her mother while her other sisters are granted the freedom to live their lives as they please. Like Cinderella, she spends her days catering to her family and finds comfort in her kitchen. As you read this story, all you want is for Tita to find her "prince charming" and live happily ever after. The "evil step-mother" is this story would be Tita's mother: Mama Elena. She holds the title of a true villain. She could care less about the wishes of her youngest daughter. She goes out of her way to sabotage Tita and Pedro's love and intentions to wed by forcing her oldest daughter Rosaura to marry Pedro. Even after the death of Mama Elena she still comes back to haunt and control Tita, not letting her grip go. The rest of the characters include her oldest sister Rosaura who is very reserved and her second sister Gertrudis, who is the rebel of the family. Gertrudis is portrayed as the wild card who just can't be contained when she runs away with her lover. A very important character to the story and also to Tita is Nacha, who is has taken care of Tita eversince she was little. It was in the kitchen with Nacha that Tita first discovered her passion for food and cooking. Nacha is like her "fairy godmother", she is always there to guild her and watch over her. Even after her death, Tita still hears her voice of wisdom in her head.
Like Water for Chocolate, the best foreign novel to ever hit the U.S, is just a refreshing story of forbidden love of two people who will stop at nothing to be wih each other. If you love a good romance with a twist, than this is the book for you. I would definatley recommend this book. It's got all the elements of a romance, with the deception and lies of a soap opera.

I had seen the film to this book years ago and it still grabs me till this day. Laura Esquivel presents a wonderfully written, Mexican Romeo & Juliet. In the story Tita grows from infant to woman in a house where it is customary that the youngest daughter care for her mother till old age. Tita finds love in her teenage years, but is kept from Pedro by her mother's need for care. Bound and determined to go her own way, Tita defies her mother's rules in a indirect way, through her cooking. Her monthly recipes tells the story of her life and portrays a sense of personal values and how deeply life can be affected by family.

Laura Esquivel creates an extended metaphor to portray this story and allows the reader to open up to Tita and feel her secrets. By incorporating food into this story, a relationship is formed that one would never think could be so strong. The way the food is prepared each and every month has a strong dependence on what will happen in the month and Tita's life. Every food is prepared with such care and emotion that Tita's feelings are shared with all those who eat her delicacy. The metaphor created by Esquivel connects two very different things into one airtight bond.

This format that she chooses, in my opinion, is very good. The message Laura Esquivel gives, is that nothing is more powerful than love. It keeps the reader interested because you always want to know what happens in the next month, and what recipe she makes. Again, her recipes are very important in this story. For instance, earlier in the story Pedro gives Tita some roses. Mama Elena told Tita she must get rid of them, but instead, she uses them in her recipe. She makes "Quail in Rose Petal Sauce," Since the roses are given to Tita with love from Pedro, the family then eats the delicious bird and everyone begins to feel hot and they feel a strong feeling between all of them. Gertrudis (middle sister) even has an orgasm at the dinner table, and was so hot that she spontaneously combusts and catches on fire. This lead her to run to the shower.

Now no one knows if these recipes are true and valid, but this exquisite novel is truly a reader's choice that is worth 5 stars. Highly recommend to those who chooses to devour this. The taste of this novel is worth it.

"Like water for chocolate" is not a voluminous novel, but it is memorable. Laura Esquivel managed to connect the magical realism (in an easy form, I admit, but nevertheless very reminiscent of Marquez, Allende or Llosa) with the style of tasty books by Peter Mayle (Provencal series) or Lily Prior ("La Cucina" - a class worse than "Like water for chocolate").

The story of Tita, the youngest of the three daughters and therefore committed to the traditional Mexican fate of the spinster caring for her mother until the mother dies, is told in chapters, each of which starts with a recipe. Tita is fascinated by cooking and spends most of her time in the kitchen, and her culinary excellence causes Pedro to fall in love with her. The love is doomed, however, because of Tita's mother, who wants to execute her traditional right. The lives of all the sisters are depicted, their fates interchanging and seemingly improbable, but interwoven with Mexican history and elements of magic. This novel takes the reader and it is impossible to get out of its grip before it ends... And the exotic recipes, full of tasty ingredients and causing unexpected events - are, in addition, delicious.