In an interview given to the New York Times, Laura Esquivel explained that she doesn’t “like to read critical or rational or impersonal or cold disquisitions on subjects”. As a writer, she aims to fulfil the expectations she carries as a reader. Consequently, Esquivel’s style is a slap in the faces of many modern authors whose books are filled with existential quests, dry language and disheartened characters; books for which Esquivel has no patience. What she likes are novels that tell “stories behind which there are truth, something real and above all something emotional”. This is precisely what she achieves in Like Water for Chocolate.