The following are reviews by COHS students for “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel.

Genre: Magical Realism

Pages: 246

Reviewer: Alejandra Q.

Like water for Chocolate is a story about a girl, Tita De La Garza, who wants to marry her love, Pedro. But her mom, Mama Elena, does not approve of it. Since Tita is the youngest of the family, she must care for her mom until the day she dies. Mama Elena does, however, let Tita’s sister, Rosaura, marry Pedro. Pedro accepts just to be able to stay close to Tita. This hurts Tita very much. All her emotions pour out into her food while she’s cooking, and everyone who eats it feels what she’s feeling. Mama Elena, however does not like Pedro being there in the house to distract Tita, so she sends Pedro and Rosaura off to San Antonio. From there, a bunch of wacky stuff starts happening between the whole family.

I really enjoyed the book. I started reading it, and did not stop until I finished. I love how it connects to the Mexican Culture, it gives me a chance to compare to certain things. The story is told really good and is really easy to follow along to the story line. This book I would definitely recommend to someone else.

1. The author’s purpose of telling the story was to tell us the story of a girl, who has to go through her life seeing the man she loves married to her sister.

2. The theme of the book is how traditions in family are not always a good thing. Tita did everything she could to change the family tradition.

3. This is shown by everything that Tita does. When she hears that her sisters daughter is destined to take care of her mother until she dies, Tita is automatically heartbroken because she knows what its like to be in that position.

4. The main issue the book raises is that Tita’s mom wont let her get married because she’s the youngest of the family. Tita’s mom lets Tita’s sister, Rosaura, marry the guy.