** spoiler alert ** 
 I actually don't know what I think about this book. I read it quickly, I was interested in what was happening but I never fully felt engrossed in it. I think the central premise of Tita's childhood sweetheart not being allowed to marry her and then deciding to marry her older sister instead so he could be close to her immediately leaves a bad taste in your mouth and then you throw in the way that Tita was treated by her mother (Tita was forbidden to marry due to the fact that, as the youngest, her existence was solely so she could look after the mother in old age) and it just felt a little off-putting. The one constant in Tita's life is cooking and throughout the book recipes are interwoven with the story. 
 Their is a supernatural quality to the story with hints of things happening and events occurring that belong more in myth than a factual account and it does give it a certain charm until the end which, to me, was unsatisfying in a lot of ways because of it. I don't know if I was rooting for Tita and Pedro so much as desperate for a happy ending. It seemed an unnecessary literary tool to end the book like that. 
 All in all, I found it an odd book. It wasn't bad but I didn't really like it either I don't think. Maybe it's one of those books that will read better second time around, but on the first reading I just don't really know what to make of it.