Like Water for Chocolate / Laura Esquirel / 246 pages / October Challenge Banned Books

Like Water for Chocolate was the #1 bestseller in Mexico in 1990.  Tita De la Garza was not meant for a loser's role.  One day when she had played hooky from school with some boys from the village, tired of her sister's games, Tita beat all the boys swimming across the Rio Grande.  When she was 14 and firecrackers startled the team of horses and caused them to stampede with the wagon filled with her sisters, Tita brought the horses back under control when the driver could not.  She was hailed as a hero.  Imagine her chagrin, then, when her true love, Pedro, asks for her hand in marriage and Mama Elena, her mother, refuses.  Instead she insists Pedro marry the older daughter, Rosaura.  Tita is devastated, but must help Nacha, the cook, prepare the wedding feast.  Nacha empathizes with Tita's sorrow and comforts her as her tears fall into the wedding cake batter and meringue icing.  When all the guests at the reception, including the bride, begin prodigious vomiting, Mama Elena blames Tita and beats her so badly she must spend 2 weeks in bed recovering.  Nacha is found dead in the kitchen and Tita takes over her role as cook.  Like Water for Chocolate is narrated by Great-Aunt Tita who recounts her early birth on the kitchen table; the Mexican tradition among well-born families that dictates that the youngest daughter not marry, but remain home to care for her mother; and her experiences the years following the fateful year her wedding did not occur.  Each chapter begins with one of Tita's recipes and her careful instructions.  Tita was often "like water for chocolate" - on the verge of boiling over.