Like Water for Chocolate

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Summary: Cinderella's Cookbook
Review: Like water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. English translation from Spanish. This delicious story of love, family, fate and food is enthralling. Esquivel, a Mexican resident, does a brilliant job on this her first novel. This book tells a tale of Tita who is unable to marry her true love due to unjust family tradition.The story develops to reveal the pain suffered by Tita in struggling to live without her soulmate and having to live with in oppression due to her old fashioned mother.Narrated in the third person this story is fairly comprehensible although it moves quickly so reading it more than once allows for better understanding. This book is outstanding as it is unique, the journey of unrequited love is captivating. The Mexican setting is easy to visualise because of the detail used in describing the food and people.the story is set at the time of the Mexican Revolution(1910 to 1920) which adds to the atmosphere of the book. Tita as the main character is likeable as she is an interesting, lively character with extreme talent for cooking. Tita deserves a lot of sympathy in the story as she is the victim. One of Tita's two sisters, Rosaura, is the quiet , shy type. She became a bother to the plot , she was placed in a bad situation but she is not an evil person.Gertrudis, Tita's other sister is a free spirited soul who rebels against all restrictions. Gertrudis brings an element of shock or surprise to the story which makes her likeable. The male lead and love interest of Tita, Pedro is highly passionate but acts at times submissive as he is not strong enough to stop circumstances. The villain of the story is arguably Mama Elena. As the mother of the three girls, this tyrant woman is dislikeable as she ruins the lives of nearly every character. Esquivel has created such a believable character in this bitter selfish woman.

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Summary: Like water for chocolate-serves up the full helping
Review: Like water for chocolate by Laura Esquivel is an enchanting love story set in Piedras Negras, Mexico during the revolution. It combines recipes and romance to portray the compelling tale of two lovers kept apart by mexican tradition. The De La Garza family are a typical family who experience elements of suffering and passion. Tita is the youngest daughter of three and has been forbidden to marry so that she can look after her mother until the day she dies. Tita however, breaks the mexican tradition by falling desperately in love with Pedro. When Pedro eventually comes to mama Elena with the request to marry her daughter Tita, he is turned down, so in desperation Pedro marries the oldest daughter Rosaura, just so that he can be close to Tita. As the story progresses, unexpected bad luck and hidden secrets evolve for the characters. The novel is written in monthly installments and includes incredible accounts of magical realism, seasoned with adventure. Like water for chocolate is a classic tale of love feuled by a banquet of typically irrisistable Mexian cuisine. An original masterpiece that you won't be able to puut down - I strogly recommend Laura Esquivel's first novel, Like water for chocolate.

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Summary: Water and Chocolate-easy to swallow
Review: Like Water for Chocolate combines a mystical tale of family legend and lost love with intriguing recipes and stories of Tita's life and love. Laura Esquivel tells the story of Tita through the narrator, Tita's great-niece, and by choosing to divide the chapters into monthly increments, each with a recipe that corresponds to that chapter, she created a book that was not only easy to read, but very hard to put down. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys tales of family, love, growing up, and learning to be your own person while still remaining a part of your past and your heritage. The book was very entertaining and both avid readers and the inexperienced, young and old, male and female would find it a pleasure to read.

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Summary: An A- for the book and an A+ for me!
Review: I chose to read Like Water For Chocolate for my World Literature class at Walla Walla High School. If you enjoy soap operas and twisted love triangles then this book is for you. It was a very good book that kept my interest the entire time. The author, Laura Esquivel, gives the book an interesting form structure. The book is written with twelve chapters and each month of the year is one chapter. However, the book lasts over several years of time. This is just one element of surprise that is thrown in throughout the entire book. It is an unpredictable love story that deals with the love and emotions that people experience, while also throwing in a mystical twist in a few places. Tita, the main character, finds love with another man, however, the family tradition forces her to try and abolish her love so that she can take care of her mother until death. Love is not an easy thing to stop for any of us and Tita realizes this even when the man of her dreams marries her sister. As she is forced to contain her feelings she inadvertently pours them into her cooking causing others to feel the same emotions, from sadness to the burning desire of lust. There are many of wild turns in this book and perhaps the wildest is the end but it is a great read and one that I would suggest to anyone who enjoys a sense of magical-realism.

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Summary: Like Water For Chocolate
Review: Like Water For Chocolate was a truly meaningful book expressing love as being mixed emotions and heartbreaking. It really brought my outlook of love to a higher aspect and I got to look at it much differently than I did before. It was unusual yet very interesting how the author mixed love, Mexican cooking and Mexican culture together to be able to look at life through the main character's, Tita De La Garza's, eyes. I also enjoyed how each chapter was its own little story that, in the end, told a huge story. Every chapter was unpredictable and that kept me tied to the book wanting to read more. It brought me through the ups and downs of all kinds of emotions and made me crave more. The metaphors were very beautifully written, catching little things to trigger my imagination and develop a true sense of the unusual traditions. Through Tita's adventures and disappointments with her mother and sisters and the love of her life Pedro, it taught me a whole new, unknown world of love and hatred and what its like to have true disappointment and unfair outcomes. Her mother, Mama Elena, has forced on her generations of traditions by not letting her start a life with Pedro. Her mother believes since Tita is the youngest of her three daughters, that she has to take care of her until the day she dies and instead of Tita being able to marry Pedro, Tita's older sister Rosaura marries him. Pedro's real plan is to marry Rosaura to become closer to Tita and to keep their relationship of burning passion a secret. Mama Elena and her cold heart make attempts to separate them but she should know how difficult a journey it is to try and separate two young people in love. She believes she has a close eye on everything they do and has tabs on where they are at all times but there are some things she just can't stop. At times during the book, I thought to myself about how Tita could possibly live with her mother being so cruel and insensitive to her feelings. As I would think about this, I concluded that Tita was a very strong and brave young lady to have to go through life with heartbreak after heartbreak. Since Tita couldn't have her own family she lived and served as a mother to her nieces and nephews and treated them like they were her own. This just made her long for her own family even more. Throughout the book Titas love for Pedro and her hatred for her mother rise and fall. Since Tita was literally "born in the kitchen", she has a passion for cooking and preparing meals. In the beginning of every chapter, it starts off as Tita preparing a meal and somehow, through magic and mystery, her emotions while preparing the meals affect the person eating them. This then slides in with the mysterious happenings of every event. This book really focuses on relationships between people in love, on sisters, and on friends. Tita looks up towards her oldest sister Gertrudis, who is not afraid to rebel against her mother and to do things for her self, for help and support. The cooks and helpers on the ranch such as Nacha and Chencha really help Tita through all the drama she experiences and always is pushing her to do what she feel is right. As you read on, its ties you into more and more of Tita and Pedro's love affair and the torn emotions and traditions Tita has to survive by. The two have to sneak around and make sure no one is keeping track of them, which makes the book adventurous and suspenseful. A lot of jealousy and burning hatred arise in the book between all the characters causing major conflict in the outcomes. Like Water For Chocolate can bring people from laughing to crying to sadness all in a matter of a couple of pages, it really knows how to play with your emotions just like love did with Titas emotions. In the book, it mainly focused on Tita but as you read on in the stories, every one of the characters had been through the same thing as she had. Everyone had a love of their life and what brought Tita down was that everyone got to experience their love as they had wished, even if they were hurt in the end, while she just got to watch.
Most people are not into the whole love story idea and don't care for love stories but this book also gives a lot of useful and interesting aspects to the unique Mexican culture. I saw how different the Mexican culture was back then and their interesting traditions. What I also enjoyed was how this kind of took me away from the rest of reality and challenged my thoughts of "is this real, or this just simple fantasy?" It got me to think and brought be into a new world where anything could be real, it all depends on if you have the true sense of imagination.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoy learning of foreign cultures and like to read love stories. This book is for a mature reader who can handle reading of the mysteries of love and for people who have a good imagination and can be challenged with the thoughts of reality and fantasy. Overall I enjoyed Like Water For Chocolate very much and would definitely recommend it.

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Summary: A Good Book To Read
Review: Like Water For Chocolate is a good book to read because of the unique way of story telling. The characters in the book are very interesting. Tita is the youngest child of her family and tradition has it that she may not marry and that her duty is to take care of her mother until she dies. Tita falls in love with a young man in her local community, but can't stand the fact that she cannot do any thing about it. Titas mother (Elena) a very religious person who is very strict about following religious believes and following all the rules and traditions, prohibits Tita to see or have relations with Pedro the man of her dreams. The story takes the character Tita through many difficult struggles, and hard decisions. The story has many twist and turns and the ending has a more significant meaning than other stories. Furthermore I though the writing was well done with good understanding by the narrator. I thought It was a clever and brilliant idea to include a recipe of a food item described in that chapter for every chapter, not only that but the chapters are organized by the mouths in a year, from chapter 1 (January) to chapter 12 (December). The author does a great job incorporating the mouth and recipe into each chapter. Another notable aspect of this book is the use of magical realism or exaggerated symbolism. There are many examples of this throughout the whole book. The ending of the story also incorporates the use of magical realism. Overall this is a great book that you can come to enjoy and appreciate. I strongly recommend this book for a good relaxing afternoon reading.

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Summary: if you're looking for romance sided with food read this book
Review: The writer takes you into a both harsh and warm family life in Mexico with restrictions upon females and secret relationships,
the literature first appears as exagerated,but then persuades the reader with the whole idea just to accept that some people have once believed that,say,the youngest daughter of a family should never marry and take care of her mother until her death.
The way the book ends,is unexpectable and charming.
onthewhole if you're looking for a book with new ideas and lifestyles I recommend this book.

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Summary: What's better than a book about food? (oh but so much more!)
Review: The story, "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel, is by far one of the best novels I have ever read. It is a novel that appeals to all of the five human senses, which makes you want to read the story from beginning to end without putting it down.
The author, Laura Esquivel, now lives in Mexico. She was originally a screenwriter. Her screenplay "Chido One" is the film version of "Like Water for Chocolate," which is also very excellent. In 1994, this book won the prestigious ABBY award, which is given by the American Booksellers Association to the book the members of the association enjoyed the most.
What makes this book great is that you not only get to read an exciting story, but you also learn how to cook. At the beginning of every chapter there is a new recipe to be made. All of the ingredients are listed and the preparation is given along with the story. Since this book is written in monthly installments, there are exactly twelve recipes; one for each month.
This book is filled with magical realism. Almost everything in the story is symbolic and full of emotion, especially the food. My mother always told me that, "the food comes out better when you're happy." "Like Water for Chocolate" portrays this saying, but with so much more. Not only happiness, but anger, love, passion, lust, and depression goes into the food, which cause the people who eat it to do some crazy things.
Like I said before, this book appeals to all of the five senses. Everything is told in such detail that you can easily imagine yourself being in the story. You can imagine yourself being there with the characters, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, feeling what they feel, smelling what they smell, and tasting every piece of food that they eat. It is truly an amazing experience and I recommend this book to everyone.

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Summary: Like Water for Chocolate
Review: This novel brought forth an odd perspective of the affect food and family can have on all of our lives. It relates emotion and feeling to the taste and preparation of the recipes and meals within its lines. Food becomes a form of communication through the meals in this book. This book not only holds recipes though, it tells a story of lost love, and of finding oneself. It teaches us never to give up on finding what/who one loves in life. This is a great book that I definetly enjoyed reading.

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Summary: Mrs chausse's class
Review: Like water for Chocolate is a wonderful novel focused around magical realism and true love. Esquivel creativly interweaves the emotions of Tita with her wonderful food. The story is told throught the eyes of Tita's neice, who looks up to Tita and admires her exquisite recipes. Tita's cooking is so powerful it affects the emotions of all the people who eat it. The love triangle between Tita, Pedro, and her sister kept me flipping each page rapidly. The story is interesting all the way through. It is packed with family drama, love, death, and teenage rebellion. It is a story that can be easily related to at least one aspect of each person's life who reads this book. I highly recommend Like Water for Chocolate for all readers.