Rating: 
Summary: Bittersweet!
Review: The passion and yearning builds with every recipe, yet just when you think you're going to have a bite of that delicious chocolate Esquivel talks about, it's taken away from you. Basically, the story grows and grows until Tita and Pedro are old and their lives are behind them. I couldn't have imagined a more unsatisfactory ending.
Rating: 
Summary: Romantic Mexican Novel
Review: Like Water for Chocolate is a must read for all those who are fans of Magic Realism. It is a novel centering on the protagonist, Tita and her struggles with her mother, Mama Elena. Their struggle represents the struggle between liberal ideas and traditional thinking. Tita, being the youngest daughter in the family must, according to family traditions, devote her whole life in caring for her mother. However, being in love with Pedro, Tita resents this tradition. When Pedro comes and askes Mama Elena for Tita's hand in marraige Mama Elena gives him, Rosaura, Tita's sister instead. Pedro agrees to this arrangement because it gives him the chance to be with Tita. However, this arrangement only adds to Tita's suffering, as you could imagine. Throughout the course of the novel Tita must come into terms with her own individuality and her love for Pedro and battle against Mama Elena's strict traditional beliefs and dominating ways.
As hinted in the title, food is a major focus for the novel. Tita's world is based on food, and her life mostly takes place in the kitchen, where she was born and raised. Under Mama Elena's ruling, Tita cannot express herself. Food and cooking gives her the only chance to do so. This is where the magic realism comes into play. Food acts as a transmiter for Tita's emotions. Whoever eats her food will feel whatever she was feeling while preparing it.
All in all, Like Water for Chocolate is a wonderful read. It is fast paced and generally simple to read and understand. I recommend it to mostly anyone, however, there are a lot of explicit scenes exchanged between Pedro and Tita, so anyone opposed to those sort of stuff should steer clear.
Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but the fantasy is too much
Review: I chose to read LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE for my 11th grade english class recently. I couldn't put the book down during the beginning of the novel. I really liked the passion the main character, Tita, has for her cooking and even more important, for her lover Pedro. It was that unrequited love that reeled me in. I could not stand Mama Elena, Tita's mother, who wouldn't let her daughter do anything that she didn't approve of. I could relate Tita's feelings to how I feel towards my parents sometimes. Nacha, the old cook on the ranch where Tita lives with her mother and sisters is truly beautiful. She was my favorite character in the book. However, I started to get annoyed with the recipes in the middle of the story as it distracted from the flow of the reading. I eventually stopped reading them. I got discusted with Tita's ongoing love toward Pedro. I could sympathsize with her if no one else would love her, but Dr. John loved her and he was so much more nicer and caring to Tita than Pedro, and he wasn't married to Tita's sister. I hated how the book put so much fantasy into the story-it was totally unreal and that took away from the beauty of the love story. I also hated how the ending was-after all the people in her way die, she goes back to Pedro instead of marrying poor John where she could've been happier. The story took a turn for the worst and I couldn't stand Tita anymore. I had to force myself to finish the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: I first found out about " Like Water for Chocolate", while chanel surfing and I came across an interesting- looking film. After seeing it, the story stuck in my head for a whole week until I decided to sign out the book from the library. After I started reading I just couldn't stop! The plot was so absurd I just needed to find out what happened next! Some people find that the recipes and supernatural events were annoying, but they just made the story more complete! You can't help but connect with the characters, they're all so interesting and each one plays an important role in the story. Esquivel put some BRILLIANT thought into this story making it a magical and truly beautiful novel to read. If you like romantic stories with a spicy little twist, READ THIS! It's Awesome!
Rating:
Summary: a classic fairy tale of today
Review: This is a delightful love story. Laura has mixed the most mouth-watering tale that we, women, we love to taste it. It's a classic.
Rating:
Summary: One of my Favorites
Review: Charming, compelling, gentle and loving.
Rating: 
Summary: A waste of time
Review: The beginning was simple enough, poor Tita, in love with Pedro and only wanting to marry him and love him forever, is denied her chance by her evil Mama Elena. (...) I found myself hating Mama Elena for being so unfair and uncaring of her daughter Tita (and Rosaura, I mean, who asked her?). However, the ridiculous turn the narrative took into such a fantastical world was just toooooo much. It became totally surreal as Tita's feelings became cooked into her meals, affecting the characters who partook of her food in strange and downright weird ways. I began to despise Tita for her ongoing obsession with Pedro and her treatment of poor Dr. John, who loved her so much (more than Pedro I think) and wasn't married to her sister either. Pedro and Tita's "love" became more routine and something that they wanted more to spite her mother than the actual love they felt. (...) I just couldn't take her anymore. I had to force myself to finish, which I promptly regretted because I hated the ending the most.
Rating:
Summary: I HATED this book!!!
Review: This is quite possibly the worst book I have ever forced myself to read all the way through. I only finished it because there was something morbidly fascinating about reading the book and waiting to see if it could get any worse. Just when I thought it had hit rock bottom, it sunk a little lower. Yet, I kept praying that if the book had to be bad, at least it could be so bad its funny. Sadly, it didn't get there. It just left me depressed that the our expectations have sunk so low that a book this bad could be a bestseller. What was so horrible about this book? Mostly the characters were pathetic, and the supernatural elements came off like a cheesy plot device. I thought the relationship between the mother and daughter (the book is so bad the characters' names have left my head) could've been interesting, but it never developed. I couldn't see why what's-his-name was such a prize that the heroine had to pine over him. And the recipes didn't make the book more interesting, they distracted from the story. Actually, that was the only saving grace of the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Magic, food, longing, and fire!
Review: Don't know why this book sticks in my mind, but it does. Don't know why the recipes are there, but they are. If you haven't seen the movie, rent it. It brings everything to life even more and is true to the book. Simply written, the characters nevertheless seem deep and real. a real keeper!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book-A Real Page Turner
Review: I love the way this book used the recipes at the beginning of each chapter and the story was great. I read this book in one day and immediately went to rent the video. I highly recommend reading this book.
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