Rating: 
Summary: Too Strange for Real Enjoyment
Review: "Like Water for Chocolate" is an interesting, easy-to-read, yet completely strange book, mainly due to its belonging to the magical realism genre. Magical realism is the combination of the real with the magical, or putting a magical twist on otherwise ordinary events. While this may appeal to some enthusiastic readers, it only served to confuse me and ruin what I thought were perfectly enjoyable scenes. The book would be moving right along, completely normal, when all of a sudden something impossibly outlandish would occur. Even though I did not appreciate these exaggerations, the main idea of the story was appealing. The very end did somewhat disappoint me, though I will not reveal what occurs. If magical realism appeals to you, then I encourage you to try this book. Unfortunately, it just did not work for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Personification
Review: I would recommend Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel because Laura has a great way of telling her story. This novel is filled with love, hate, remedies, and recipes. The story of two lovers, Pedro and Tita, are told on a monthly base with the story being told with a specific recipe. The recipe tells the story of the love Tita and Pedro share and still have for one another. The recipes also aggresses the anger that Tita has towards her mother, Mama Elena, who had the idea of Pedro marrying Rosaura, and her anger towards Pedro because he took the offer. You see Tita is required to follow the old Mexican tradition that the youngest daughter is to take care of her mother until the day she dies and is to not marry. Tita, being the youngest daughter, had to follow this tradition and is not able to marry Pedro. Pedro wanted to be closer to Tita so he took the offer and married Rosaura.
Laura Esquivel has a unique way of writing. She brings out the best of her with the ideas and her sense of creativity. Her creativity makes you think twice about what you are reading about. She has this way of writing where you can see and picture exactly what she is trying to tell the readers. The recipes of love in the story personify the actions the characters make giving the novel a unique perception.
Others should defiantly read Like Water for Chocolate because it gives us a different view on life and love itself. Love is a strong feeling that we all have at some point or another so reading this novel would really help those that don't really understand love and how strong it is. Nothing and no one in this world can break that connection that two people have.
Rating: 
Summary: wuthering heights!
Review: laura esquivel knows passion to its very bone. it is aphrodisiac in a sense because it pushes you to a whirlwind of flavors and the enchanment of the plant properties. you can almost taste the skin of a petal or smell the spices. and as the blood slowly walks down the stairs, you know you have truly known the pains of a broken heart.excellent! excellent! excellent! i miss it so much because there is not many whose talent for passion writing pushes up to wuthering heights!
Rating:
Summary: Experience A Literary, Romantic Spanish Feast
Review: Laura Esquivel's novel "Like Water For Chocolate" was delicious. It is meant to be read, as if in a book club, in monthly installments as she offers recipes for home-cooked meals in old Spanish style, as well as home remedies. Esquivel has written a jewel of a novel. It is deeply aesthetic, romantic, melancholic, well written, poetic. Esquivel's novel is essentially about the pleasure and pain of love, the exquisite feast of blissful emotions when two people are as much in love as Pedro and Tita. But there is also the pain of parting, the unfulfillable romance that is forced to be kept a secret due to the tightly constructed society rules and expectations. In a sense, it is very European in that respect, at times similar to something that Henry James would have written and set in England or France and not a turn of the century Mexican town. Tita De La Graza comes from a distinguished and well-known family, of a widowed mother who cherishes her daughters. Since Tita is the youngest, she must accept her tragic fate and not marry in order to take care of her aging mother. Rosaura, the eldest daughter, joyfully accepts Pedro's proposal of marriage. But Pedro hides a secret. He is in love with Tita. A hopeless and forbidden romance ensues. But it is not long before Tita's mother discovers the love affair. Scandal erupts and in the midst of all the romantic storm, Tita and Pedro declare their undying love and care less about the uptight Spanish Catholic society surrounding them. As good romantic fiction as it is a recipe book, Laura Esquivel is sure to delight readers of all backgrounds, not just Mexican, provided they are lovers of love, hopeless romantics and have an apetite for love. As always, the central symbol of love is chocolate, long favored as an aphrodisiac, and the comparison between falling in love and tasting good, rich food in a sumptuous feast. This book is a must have for readers of romance novels with literary strength. Look also for the 1992 film.
Rating:
Summary: Like Water for Chocolate
Review: "Like Water for Chocolate" is a very enjoyable read, although there are some parts of the story that alienated me. The fantasy scenes were a bit too unbelievable, at least for my Yankee self, and parts of the story seemed a bit too contrived. Esquivel did a good job of keeping the reader interested in the story and incorporating the recipes into the plot for the most part but there was a little too much emphasis on food and people's relation to it. Reading this was a pleasant experience but nothing really astounding.
Rating:
Summary: Like Water for Chocolate
Review: This book, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, was so out of this world, it was like nothing I have ever read before. I could not think of anything I read to possibly compare it to. It is a story that will be loved by all because it has something for everyone. It is a fantasy fairy-tale, a soap opera, and a Mexican cookbook all rolled into this one piece of literature. You really don't know what to expect next because it's so unpredictable. It will make you laugh and cry and even wonder about the tales told. It was so rich in detail and the description the author uses appeals to the sense of taste, which is rare in other books because they usually describe sight, sound and touch. But not this book. It was very bizarre because it was a new culture to me and the way the author described the food and preparation and taste was exotic. The way the main characters were portrayed was very intimate, and you could almost get inside their heads and feel their feelings and desires.
The formant of this book it set up in such a unique way. There are 12 chapters, one for each month in a year and before the chapter starts there is an ingredient list for a new dish for that month. At the beginning of every chapter it goes into detail about how to prepare this new and sinfully delicious dish. It made the book a little more interesting and adding a little "flavor" if you will.
This is story of a young girl named Tita, at the turn of the century in Mexico, who is struggling with her love of a man named Pedro and the hate of her strict, cruel, unloving mother, Mama Elena, who treats poor Tita like a slave in her own house. The way Mama Elena is described is like the typical evil step mom in Cinderella, though she is her real mother, and you feel hatred towards her for being so cold. It's almost as if she has no feelings at all, which has a significant twist at the ending. Tita suffers through the normal things a teenage girl would go through, but also so many things that are difficult that people should not have to go through in their lifetime. Like when Tita's evil mother forbids Tita to marry her love, Pedro, and instead has Tita's older sister, Rosaura, marry Pedro. Tita's relationship with Rosaura is pretty much nonexistent from that point on which creates a lot of drama later on in the story. And if it couldn't get any worse, Tita is forced to prepare the wedding cake and attend the ceremony without shedding one tear, under Mama Elena's merciless orders And what's even more painful for Tita is that Pedro and Rosaura live in the same house as Tita, which is unbearable for her to see them together. However, not all is lost for Tita's love life. There is a point in the story when Tita must choose between two of her lovers that will decide the rest of her life. Tita even suffers the death of loved ones, which leaves empty holes and scars in her heart. A lot of conflict happens in the story, which keeps it fresh and alive, and never boring or dull. It has everything: love, hate, desire, death, marriage, cooking, grief, and joy. It was just full of raw emotions.
There is so much hate, and yet so much love between all the characters. Tita is madly in love with Pedro and feels comfort in her sister Gertrudis, yet feels hate and anger towards Mama Elena and Rosaura. All these mixed feelings that Tita feels, she puts into her cooking because she spends almost all of her time creating meals and recipes in the kitchen. Whatever she feels while making a dish, whoever eats it is enchanted by it and the mood that Tita is in is the mood of the eaters. It's so strange how the author created mysticism and spells through the food Tita makes. You can't help but wonder whether this could really happen because it just seems so realistic, though it's all fantasy. I was even tempted to try one of the recipes myself that were given in the book. Especially Cream Fritters (in the month of October) because the way Gertrudis loves them so much made me want to taste them. The whole plot is based around Tita's cooking and how it affects her and the people around her. Her dish called Quail in rose petal sauce completely turns her sister Gertrudis's life around.
Women and girls would like this book especially because the main character is a girl. It gets inside her head and tells her thoughts, which we could all relate to. Like all the anger she feels inside that Mama Elena has caused, I'm sure all the readers are feeling the same thing as they get deeper and deeper into her character.
But people of all age and gender should read this book, not just women because as I said before, there really is something for everyone. Once you start reading, you won't be able to stop because with every page you pick deeper and deeper into the plot of the story. It never, at any point, drags on and on like epic novels, so this book is a quick read, but well worth it. It's a new kind of book, one like you've never read before. It's unique and thought provoking and you will enjoy it because I know I did.
Rating:
Summary: Great Love Story
Review: The book Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel was a very interesting book. When I first took a look at a it, I got the feeling that it was a cookbook with a simple plot, but after reading each chapter, I got pulled further into the plot. It was a beautifully written story of love and hate and destiny. This struggling young girl named Tita who is living with her very strict, loveless mother and two older sisters has to serve her mother until she dies, because Tita was born the youngest and as the family tradition goes, the youngest must serve her mother. Tita falls in love with a man named Pedro, but cannot have him, since she was born to serve her mother. When Pedro marries her sister in an attempt to stay close to her, jealousy erupts. The only way for Tita and Pedro to share their love with each other without her mother, Mama Elena, or her sister, Rosaura catching them, is through Tita's cooking. Through Tita's food, she can carry feelings of love, sickness, and lust to the person who eats it. The whole story is how Tita and Pedro struggle to be together; and do they end up together at the end, well that is for you to decide after you've finished reading this book. This book is so in touch with your senses, especially with taste and smell. It's not only a tale of struggling love, but its a fantasy and cookbook, all in one. It shows so much insight into the Mexican culture and shows how love can bring two people together no matter how hard it is to get there. Through it all, you will come out of this book laughing, crying, and yearning for more. To think that cooking can be used as a link of communication between two young lovers, torn between the cold heart of a mother is amazing. But also to think that Tita, this girl who got overflowed with emotions and mixed feelings at so young could make it through, well that makes this story all the more inspiring. This book is good for people from all different genres, whether it is cooking you like, fantasy, love, or adventure, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Just like the movie!
Review: I adored the movie and went out the very next day to find the book, hoping for a deeper perspective on the characters. I was disappointed and surprised to find that it was quite exactly like the screenplay. That makes the screenplay extraordinarily excellent, I suppose, rather than compromising the quality of the book, but if you've already seen the movie, I wouldn't hope for much more in the book. If you haven't seen the movie, by all means read the book: it's sexy, spirited, sensual and moving. *THEN,* for SURE go rent the movie. The subtitles are more than worth the trouble.
Rating:
Summary: There still is hope
Review: The receipts weren't my main interest in reading the book, and I found them nice to read, but difficult to put into practice. I've read better books of this kind (and I can't stop mentioning Isabel Allende's "Afrodita" which is a genuine art-piece) but it was a good read and full of optimism (after all!). Interesting the idea that the cook's feelings influence the meal :-)
Rating:
Summary: Mexican Fairy Tale
Review: Imaginatively told sensual romance, somewhat of Cinderella story, though in this fantasy/fairy tale it's Tita's mother who is cruel beyond reason to her and causes her life to be one of work & misery. Fortunately Tita is blessed with magical cooking skills, her powers are felt by consuming her dishes and amazing events occur all around her. This is a quick read book, romantic and funny, an escape from reality.
|
