Thursday, March 3, 2011

17: Like Water for Chocolate


Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquivel, is a book written in the magic realism genre and is about a Mexican family and their traditions, their love and their family drama. It was recommended to me by someone else, and I have to say, I liked it.

The style of writing reminds me of the movie Big Fish , which I absolutely loved. It’s exaggerated and embellished, but aren’t most stories? It tells the story of Tita, who is the youngest daughter, and must never get married, because she has to take care of her mother until the day she dies, per tradition. Well, the boy she loves (and who loves her) is Pedro, but Pedro ends up marrying her sister, Rosaura, but he does not love her. Tita learns how to cook and while she cooks, her emotions end up in the food and anyone who eats the food will certainly feel the same emotions as Tita. So the wedding is a terribly sad event and everyone cried because Tita was crying when she chopped the onions. And another family event is bitter because Tita is bitter when she is cooking. This cracked me up, because aah… what story would my food tell some nights?

The story develops into more of a drama, with brothels and death and soldiers and rape, but it retains its very magical-style of writing. Like I said earlier, I liked this genre more than I thought I would and I am excited to rent the movie that is based off this book and read it.

The only thing that disappointed me was the recipes were not very useable for me. I’m not planning on making Ox-Tail Soup anytime soon, at least 
:)

I give this book a 7/10. A good, solid but funky love story. 

No comments:

Post a Comment