Name: Like Water for Chocolate
Rating: 3.729674796747967 (246 reviews)
ISBN: 9780552995870

Laura Esquivel

A culinary romance set in Mexico. Condemned by tradition to look after her tyrannical mother and remain a spinster, Tita finds her destiny in the kitchens of the family ranch. Her recipes for Mexican dishes are woven into the story of her doomed romance with Pedro, her brother-in-law.

Like Water for Chocolate

Dolce come il cioccolato

Antonio Marini

"Como agua para chocolate" di Laura Esquivel è un romanzo che inizia con una miscela perfetta di poesia, tradizione e realismo magico. La cucina diventa un reattore in cui si mescolano emozioni, desideri e legami familiari, dando vita a trasformazioni profonde e inaspettate.<br /><br />La prima parte è sorprendente e originale: le ricette non sono semplici dettagli, ma veri e propri strumenti narrativi che influenzano il destino dei personaggi. Tuttavia, andando avanti, la storia perde un po’ di quella magia iniziale, trasformandosi sempre più in una classica novella sudamericana, con amori corrisposti e non, tradimenti e dinamiche familiari intense, mentre il legame tra cucina e narrazione si affievolisce.<br /><br />Resta comunque una lettura scorrevole e coinvolgente, capace di trasportare il lettore nel cuore della cultura messicana con i suoi sapori e sentimenti. Un romanzo da leggere, anche solo per il suo incipit straordinario.

novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores y remedios caseros

Como agua para chocolate

Sinny

Que lectura tan hermosa, me hacía falta leer una buena novela de realismo mágico. Simplemente magistral.

Karla M. Salazar G.

A young girl named Tita longs her entire life for her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her domineering mother's traditional belief that the youngest daughter must not marry but take care of her mother until the day she dies. Tita is only able to express her passions and feelings through her cooking, which causes the people who taste it to experience what she feels.

novela en doce entregas con recetas, amores, y remedios caseros

Me encantò, por triste que me hizò poner

Annabella

Libertad Aguilar

The beautiful personification Laura Esquivel gives to the ingredients is amazing. It feels almost like a folk tale! Highly recommend!

Katherine Yang

I love food, and I love magic realism, and I even sometimes love sappy romances. However, I am sad to report that I did not love this book.

A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies'. The international bestseller.The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit - and recipes. A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her. For the next twenty-two years Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.

Haylie

Como Água Para Chocolate

Joana

Kal Ma Lilshukulata Como Agua Para Chocolate  Like Water for Chocolate  Arabic

Hussein Mahran

لا أعرف بالتحديد مصدر السحر في روايات أدباء أميركا اللاتينية، لكن رواياتهم دائمًا ما تزخر بالبهجة والشجن والموسيقى والغموض والألوان والنكهات، ودائمًا ما يختلط فيها الواقع بالخيال دون افتعال، بل ودون أن يكاد القارئ يشعر بالخيط الرفيع الفاصل بين ما هو حقيقي وما هو غير ذلك، دائمًا ما تأتي رواياتهم ملحمية كالأساطير القديمة، ودائمًا ما تدور أحداثها في عوالم ساحرة وغامضة تشتعل في خلفيتها حروب وثورات لا تنتهي ربما كجزء من ثقافة وتاريخ تلك المنطقة من العالم، شخصياتهم فريدة ومبتكرة، قلما تجد ما يشبهها في أدب الشعوب الأخرى، هذه الرواية من النوع الذي تشعر بافتقاد شخصياته بعد الانتهاء من قراءته وكأنهم أشخاص فعليون عشت معهم تلك الأحداث

Trever

So, this is kind of hard to rate. On the one hand, it was good before bed reading and a charming story; on the other hand, the romance seemed implausible and the style felt a bit childish at times. So three stars, not four.

Ellie Younger

This book is organized in seasons and months, with a new recipe at the beginning of each section. The food imagery continues through out, and often left my mouth watering. The book is magical realism, which was a little bit difficult for me to grasp, but it was well written.

Johanna Kenrick

Like Water for Chocolate, the first novel by Laura Esquivel starts with onions and a birth. Chopping onions, that bring about a wave of tears. This opening is apt because the entirety of the novel weaves together food and emotions.

For me, this is actually a re-reading. My copy is a stolen one, taken from a beach house my family stayed in one spring, probably after I’d finished all the mystery novels I’d brought down with me. I’m not sure why I grabbed it. Maybe I gravitated toward the cheery cover, or perhaps the moderate size. Still, I’m glad I did. Because once I started reading, I was fully sucked in.

Like Water for Chocolate was my first intro to magical realism, now one of my favorite storytelling tools. Tita de la Graza, our passionate protagonist, finds her home in the kitchen of her family’s large Mexican ranch. Nurtured by the stove from a young age, she connects with flavors and food in a way that most people only dream of. She also wins the heart of Pedro Muzquiz, a boy from their neighborhood and is heartbroken when she is told by her mother that they can never wed, due to the family tradition of the youngest daughter having to stay home and take care of her mother as she ages.

Pedro, unable to bear the idea of being separate from Tita, marries her sister Rosura instead, turning the ranch into a hotbed of love, lust, jealousy and heartache.

Tita’s haven is her kitchen and her artistry is in cooking, so the food she makes is imbued with the emotions she feels. Heartbroken, and her cake will make you sick. Lustful, and her meal causes one of her sisters to run away with a rebel.

No – the story is not particularly realistic. The emotions are sweeping and devastating in their fury, the love is steadfast and unchanging…and I’m fairly certain it’s impossible to make hundreds of partygoers sick just because you were sad when you made the cake batter.

The rich emotions give the novel a timeless, mythic feeling.

Nonetheless, Esquivel uses these grand, almost operatic turns of phrase to tug at the reader’s heart. For don’t we all know that feeling?

I had been meaning to reread this book for years (tellingly, unlike so many others, this one has never been donated or lent away). The setting and culture, particularly the food, are undeniably impactful on the story, but overall it’s a story about love, longing and the confounding ties and responsibilities that come with family: universal feelings, to be sure.

A Better Bookshelf

Like Water for Chocolate

Reviews

Highlights