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| Like Water for Chocolate | 
| Author: Laura Esquivel
Creators: Cathleen Toelke, Carol & Thomas Christensen
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $26.94 (100%)
New (86) Collectible (36) from $1.77
Avg. Customer Rating:  439 reviews
Sales Rank: 203363
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0385420161
Dewey Decimal Number: 863
EAN: 9780385420167
ASIN: 0385420161
Publication Date: September 6, 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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| Also Available In:
| • | Hardcover - Like Water for Hot Chocolate | | • | Hardcover - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies | | • | Paperback - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies | | • | Mass Market Paperback - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Mass Market Paperback - Like Water For Chocolate | | • | Unbound - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Paperback - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Audio Cassette - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Audio Cassette - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Hardcover - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, With Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies | | • | Audio Cassette - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Audio CD - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Hardcover - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Paperback - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Unknown Binding - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | School & Library Binding - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Paperback - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, With Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies | | • | Hardcover - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, With Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies (Curley Large Print Books) | | • | Library Binding - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, With Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies | | • | Hardcover - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies | | • | Unknown Binding - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Audio Cassette - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Audio Download - Like Water for Chocolate | | • | Audio Download - Like Water for Chocolate (Unabridged) | | • | Kindle Edition - Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 434 more reviews...
You'll enjoy this! November 21, 2008
Atmospheric, magical and sensual, Like Water for Chocolate is the story of Tita's loves and family on a ranch in Mexico. As the youngest daughter in her family Tita is doomed to care for her mother until she dies. Unfortunately Tita meets Pedro and it is full blown passion at first sight. Unfortunately life had other plans and the doomed lovers cannot be together. What happens is Tita's love and emotions are transferred into her legendary cooking.
 YUmmy! October 27, 2008
This book makes me wanna cook!!!
The way in which the food is describe is DELICIOUS!!!! Delicioso, sabroso!!!
Loved it.....each chapter keeps you wondering....nice style of writing!
A+
Have to watch the movie now.
:-)
An endearing little book September 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A friend of mine lent me this book a few months ago and I never got around to reading it. I gave it back to her when we graduated from college, but I still wanted to read it, so I bought a copy. It didn't sit around for too long this time; I read it in a day.
Tita grew up in the kitchen, surrounded by her love of food. She is overjoyed when she falls in love with a man, until she learns that as the youngest daughter, she is intended to stay home and take care of her mother - forever. This little book, which is told in twelve chapters, each a different month of the year, with a recipe for each one, is another endearing exercise in magical realism from a Latin American storyteller.
The reader knows straight away that Tita will never be married. This gives the entire story a bittersweet feel; we know her relationships aren't going to succeed before they even happen. Regardless, I did find it charming. Tita is lovely and I grew to care for her very quickly. Her family is very peculiar and all members have strictly defined personalities. At first, it seems Mama Elena is a stereotypically horrible mother, but later on we learn that there is more to her story, too.
The magical realism adds a special dimension to the story. I hadn't expected it going in to the book. As I've mentioned before, I read most books without knowing anything about them because I largely read from recommendations and generally avoid reviews or even reading the back cover. The supernatural aspects make it clear that this isn't real life, but they don't take away from the universal romantic experiences that Tita endures.
The format is interesting. This book is certainly a novel, but the fact that it is split into twelve equal chapters means that it's easier to break down if you don't have much time to read. I haven't tried any of the recipes and I'm not sure that I will, particularly given that the instructions are spread throughout each chapter and are potentially hard to follow when in a hurry. If you were reading for a book club, however, it might be fun to have a small party around the book and have each member try a different recipe. At least, that's what I would do.
I would recommend this book, I think; it's a light read, but at the same time heartfelt and moving.
Quirky but fun all the same June 4, 2008
A delightful little book, Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate is almost a modern-day fairy tale. Told in monthly installments, the novel is simultaneously story and cookbook, filled with both recipes and home remedies and as well as the story of Tita, our heroine, who was born, raised and taught in the kitchen, and who has the amazing ability to cook her emotions into her marvelous recipes. Tita's story is one of longing, love and the need to be her own person; to escape the tyrannical presence of her mother and create her own life with the man she loves. It's a relatively fast read, but enjoyable all the same.
 IB English HL Book Review May 28, 2008
If you enjoyed Allende's The House of the Spirits, then this is the right book for you! Much like Allende's novel, Like Water for Chocolate combines the ordinary and the supernatural in the portrayal of two young, Latino lovers living in the midst of civil war. However, Esquivel's work remains unique though her use of food in not only emphasizing her pride in the Mexican culture, but also in expressing the strong conflicting emotions that are deep within the hearts of the characters. Through the use of magical realism and the motif of food, Esquivel depicts a love story that explores the classic theme of what happens to a dream deterred.
Every chapter of the novel begins with a recipe, which serves to accentuate how the life of a traditional Mexican family is centered on the kitchen. Thus it is no surprise that the main character is no other than the youngest daughter and head chef, Tita, who is characterized as a talented young girl whose spirit is constantly broken by her mother's incessant upbraiding. Tita's lifelong pain is symbolized through the motif of onions, which appear throughout the novel during times of deep sorrow and heavy weeping. Esquivel's use of food as a motif is further evidenced by Tita's culinary masterpieces--such as the rose dish that causes its consumers to be afflicted with erotic obsession. Overall, Esquivel's originality is derived from her ability to mix the elements of cooking, erotica, and the magical realism in creating a novel that demonstrates the consequences of emotional repression. I personally recommend this novel to anyone who is looking for a love story chock-full of Hispanic culture, garnished with elements of the supernatural.
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