The Mistress of Spices

Written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the story was about a traditional woman crossing her bounds when she falls for an American.
Tilo is a mistress of spices. She knows when and what spice to use for people's ailments and troubles. Spices 'talk' to her. On top of that, she can sense the lives of people who visit her in her store (in a city in America). Combining the two, she is a successful mistress of spices.
She tries to help the clients in her store, within the bounds that a mistress lives with (as taught by her First Mother a.k.a. her teacher from the island). There is Haroun, the taxi driver; Mrs. Ahuja, the battered wife; Jagjit, the immigrant kid; Geeta and her grandfather, the family who can't accept a man from another race and finally, there is Doug, Tilo's American.
There are apparently many rules for a mistress. She can't touch other people. She can't use spices for her own gain. She can't step out of the store. She can't help people of other backgrounds. She can't get too involved in people's lives, only help within the boundaries of the store. And finally, she can never fall in love. But she does.
The first half of the book talked about Tilo's background as a child - the adventures and hardships she went through, before she arrived at the spices' island and then her learnings. It talked about how she helped a lot of people coming to her store.
The second half was focused on her battle with her heart and duty, as she realises she has fallen in love with Doug and wants to be with him. She breaks many more rules as she spends time with Doug and it starts affecting other people.
It was interesting to see that each chapter was titled with a different spice, but there wasn't much cohesiveness and magic as many people saw. The book certainly made a little more sense than the movie did, but it couldn't clear up the muddled mess for me. Maybe I haven't achieved that level of understanding yet. I would take a pass.