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Summary: A Mexican Cinderella Story
Review: Imaginatively told, romantic and sensual - this is a Latin-style fairy tale for adults only. Tita, our heroine, has a life of work & misery, caused by her mother who is cruel beyond reason to her and has brainwashed her since birth into believing that the youngest daughter must remain a spinster and take care of her mother for ever. Fortunately Tita is blessed with magical cooking skills that allow her to attract lovers and cast many types of spells over the people that consume her dishes, amazing events occur all around her. Tita is not the only talented member of the family either, her sisters are notable personalities as well.I recommend this as a light & funny escape from reality.
Rating:
Summary: A Mexican Cinderella Story
Review: Imaginatively told, romantic and sensual - this is a Latin-style fairy tale for adults only. Tita, our heroine, has a life of work & misery, caused by her mother who is cruel beyond reason to her and has brainwashed her since birth into believing that the youngest daughter must remain a spinster and take care of her mother for ever. Fortunately Tita is blessed with magical cooking skills that allow her to attract lovers and cast many types of spells over the people that consume her dishes, amazing events occur all around her. Tita is not the only talented member of the family either, her sisters are notable personalities as well. I recommend this as a light & funny escape from reality.
Rating: 
Summary: Es uno de los libros peor escritos en el circuito comercial
Review: La historia es por todos conocida: la hija que no se casa para cuidar a la madre y el novio que se casa con la hermana para estar cerca. Sin embargo, eso es todo lo que el libro tiene que ofrecer. Los personajes son meras caricaturas, el ritmo de la narracion es inapropiado, y el manejo del lenguaje es deplorable. Es una pena que existiendo tanta literatura latinoamericana de calidad, sea este producto el mas publicitado.
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Summary: A NEW POINT OF VIEW OF FEMALES IN LATINAMERICAN CULTURE
Review: Laura Esquivel did her good launching her first successful master piece, Como Agua Para Chocolate. This novel let us see by Tita (main character) her repressive hard-to-die mother, a sister who brokes all cultural laws and another who becomes her adversary for the love of Pedro (main character). With the warm atmosphere of a kitchen, hard-to-achieve love, passion, more recipes and characters external and internal fights this novel is a must to have. Language is very simple but don't low the quality of the context. For spanish learners is ideal not just for spanish literature but get familiar with our culture.
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Summary: Cinderella Revisited
Review: Like Water For Chocolate
By Laura Esquivel
Doubleday Anchor Books, Random House,1995 What if the wicked stepmother gave Prince Charming to one of the ugly sisters? What if Cinderella was not the darling of the hearth but, through her command of the kitchen, exacted her revenge on everyone in the household? What if the ensuing drama assumed hallucinatory, Alice in Wonderlandish proportions? If anything about Cinderella lights your fire, you have to read Laura Esquivel's debut novel, Like Water for Chocolate.
Like Water for Chocolate is a love story folded into the pages of a cookbook. "Quail in Rose Sauce" and similarly exotic recipes introduce each chapter of this simple domestic tale about a family's celebration of weddings, christenings, and wakes.
Into the simmering cauldron of Mexican revolution at the turn of the century, Laura Esquivel ladles the key ingredients: Tita, her two sisters, and their domineering mother. When family tradition condemns Tita to remain single, she empties her despair into her love for cooking. A masterful storyteller, Equivel turns up the heat until Tita's passion reaches boiling point, like water for chocolate. Tita's true love, Pedro, and other male characters wait on the periphery, these fantastic, female characters are the feast itself in an earthy rendition of Cinderella that will leave you greedy for more.
If you enjoyed Babette's Feast you will devour Like Water for Chocolate like a starving animal. The power of food can mould any occasion but the magical dishes at Tita's banquets catapult the guests into everything from food poisoning to mass orgies. A soap opera of family secrets and fiancé-stealing siblings is whisked in along with bizarre, mythological elements in a mouth-watering, tall tale that conjures up Chagall-like images: squabbling chickens that bore a hole into the earth, tears that pour down the stairs, a woman's lust that ignites a building.
All is carefully baked into screenwriter Esquivel's sumptuous novel and liberally garnished with home hints for breast-feeding, curing flatulence and bad breath, and making matches.
With Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel begins a tradition of playfully blending genres to create sensual, humorous concoctions that are part family history and part superstition, a tradition she continues with Between Two Fires.
Like Water for Chocolate is, above all, a fairytale about star-crossed lovers whose sizzling passion is thwarted from beginning to end. Though Esquivel refuses throughout to comfort the reader with the tempting aroma of a happy ending, the twists and turns of the final chapter are as satisfying as any the romance reader will ever read.
Bon Apetit!
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Summary: Mystical and Romantic
Review: Like Water For Chocolate is a wonderful and enchanting novel overflowing with intense passion and desire. It is a beautifully written Mexican story about a girl named Tita who is denied her first true love. It tells of the suffering, struggle, and power of women living in a deeply-rooted heritage full of war and countless traditions. Uniquely written, the novel is a story told in twelve monthly installments interwoven with recipes that enable Tita's freedom and individuality to shine through her deprived childhood. Her talent and love for cooking are easily understood as she demonstrates the power of food on the soul. This novel focuses on Tita's quest for love and happiness, which, in return, bring out the reader's most intimate emotions. It is a fun book persuading the reader that perhaps magic and reality are one in the same. It is a romantic fairy-tale as well as one of the best page-turners I have ever read.
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Summary: FOOD AND DRAMA, CAN'T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!
Review: Like Water for Chocolate was an amazing story of love and triumph. A teenage girl lives a life full of all kinds of powerful experiences which she comes about because all of her different emotions. The girl, Tita, learns that she is forced to live an unmarried life in order to take care of her mother. When her mother realizes that Tita shows affection towards Pedro, Tita's one true love, the mother marries him off to Tita's older sister. This creates a very difficult situation for the rest of Tita's life.
Tita is also the head cook of the household. Through her cooking, which is vibrant and glowing with emotion, she spills her feelings of longing, frustration, rebellion, and love. Good, bad, loving, or sad Tita's feelings are so powerful that it affected everyone who smelled, touched, and tasted her wonderful food.
This makes for an interesting and fascinating story which is written in an incredibly unique, simple style. Like Water for Chocolate made me respect the different types of love in one's life. Even with all of the difficult events in her life, Tita found her true love. I admired her because she always had and showed love for other people which sometimes kept her from making decisions that were in her best interest. I recommend this book because it's a different type of love story which anyone can relate to.
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Summary: FOOD AND DRAMA, CAN'T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!
Review: Like Water for Chocolate was an amazing story of love and triumph. A teenage girl lives a life full of all kinds of powerful experiences which she comes about because all of her different emotions. The girl, Tita, learns that she is forced to live an unmarried life in order to take care of her mother. When her mother realizes that Tita shows affection towards Pedro, Tita's one true love, the mother marries him off to Tita's older sister. This creates a very difficult situation for the rest of Tita's life.
Tita is also the head cook of the household. Through her cooking, which is vibrant and glowing with emotion, she spills her feelings of longing, frustration, rebellion, and love. Good, bad, loving, or sad Tita's feelings are so powerful that it affected everyone who smelled, touched, and tasted her wonderful food.
This makes for an interesting and fascinating story which is written in an incredibly unique, simple style. Like Water for Chocolate made me respect the different types of love in one's life. Even with all of the difficult events in her life, Tita found her true love. I admired her because she always had and showed love for other people which sometimes kept her from making decisions that were in her best interest. I recommend this book because it's a different type of love story which anyone can relate to.
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Summary: Love Has Many Obstacles
Review: Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquivel, is evidence that love has many obstacles. The story takes place in a ranch located in Mexico where a house full of women live. Mama Elena and her three daughters, Rosaura, the oldest, Gertrudis, and Tita, the youngest, are the women of that ranch. The book revolves around Tita and her true love Pedro. Tita, being the youngest, has to take care of her mother until the day her mother died because it was a family tradition. Therefore, Mama Elena forbids Pedro from taking Tita's hand in marriage but offered him to take Rosaura's hand instead. So Pedro marries Rosaura so he can be close to Tita. Tita not knowing his intention for marrying his sister, became very upset and sad but she had to hide her true feelings so Mama Elena wouldn't be angry with her. This was a struggle for both Tita and Pedro because they really loved each other. As days went by, Mama Elena kept a close eye on Tita and Pedro. Then one day, she told Pedro that he, Rosaura, and their baby had to move to Texas because she had a feeling that Tita and Pedro were having a secret affair. Tita felt like her life was going to end because she loved Pedro so and she was attached to Roberto. She also couldn't take losing Pedro for the second time. Years past and Tita felt something different for someone different. She and John, the doctor, became close and were soon engaged. Pedro became angry at the fact that Tita was going to marry someone that wasn't him and began to have tantrums. Tita didn't like what Pedro was doing but his actions gave her a sudden dose of reality. She realized that she had to choose who she wanted to be with and that decision was easy because of the love she felt when he was around. So with that feeling inside of her, she chooses Pedro, her true love and they become one. This book is full of tears and obstacles that are overcome by Tita and Pedro's love for one another.
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Summary: Perfect recipe and prescription for literary satisfaction
Review: Mama Elena forbids Tita de la Garza to marry her true love Pedro. This "recipe", leads assuredly to adultery and incest. Tita spends her life dispensing superb meals, when not her own breasts, to feed others. The contrast is Tita's half (?) sister who leaves the De La Garza ranch, naked in a horse and face to face with the horse's rider. An excellent translation, that almost automatically and easily folds onto a marvelous movie of the same title
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