The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street Book Review
The House on Mango Street, a coming of age book by Sandra Cisneros that takes you through years in the life of Esperanza Cordero, while she is living on Mango Street in Chicago, Illinois. The book is written in many short stories or vignettes of two to three pages rather than one long novel of chapters. You learn who Esperanza is as she is figuring herself out. Although the house on Mango Street is an improvement from past houses. Esperanza hopes for a better one in the future and feels like she does not belong there.
Esperanza has trouble defining herself. At the beginning of the book, she doesn’t like her name and tries to defy everything she thinks she is “supposed” to be. Esperanza calls her name a “muddy color,” saying it means sadness and waiting. She was named after her great-grandmother, she had a life looking out the window. Esperanza had inherited her name but did not want to inherit the spot by the window.
Esperanza meets many people throughout the book. Mamacita, who never leaves her house because she is frightened of English. Cathy, who is the “queen of cats,” Meme Ortiz, the man who moved into Cathy’s house when she moved out, Sally her best friend, and Nenny her younger sister. All these people taught Esperanza lessons about life and helped shape the impact Mango Street had on her.
Throughout The House on Mango Street, Esperanza experiences a sexual awakening, in the beginning, she is very pure and will only interact with her brothers. But she witnesses her neighbors being abused and knows that she wants to get away from that. The “Monkey Garden” was a place felt safe and could be a kid, but that was then taken when some boys stole sally’s keys and made her kiss all of them to get them back. She then loses her innocence, after being raped by a man at the carnival when her friend Sally leaves her there.
In the end, Esperanza talks to Alicia, a girl studying in college, and Alicia tells her that even if you do not like the house on Mango Street you will come back to it, no matter how ashamed you are of it now. Esperanza vows that she will leave Mango Street but will come back to it for the neighbors and friends. She could never forget where she came from. Esperanza has changed through this book and went from being a kid to becoming a young adult.
I really enjoyed this book because it was an easy read, but there was a lot to take from it. The book gave me a new view on growing up in different neighborhoods, and the struggles others face that I do not. It teaches you what it is like to live life in a less desirable neighborhood. I would recommend this book to young readers or if you enjoy books about facing reality. The book was very touching and written in a unique way.

Positives: This book is considered a cultural classic so an informed person might like to take a look at it to see why. More books should be published that are actually written by teenage girls at the time they are teens so we can understand them better and perhaps help them. The vignettes do reflect some of Esperanza’s (now Sandra’s) actual experiences. Her relationship and ideas about boys and her Hispanic friends are especially interesting and worthwhile reading about.
Negatives: Obviously the narratives have been doctored, edited, and adjusted to speed sales and to make things more viable commercially. That detracts from our understanding of the real nature of her poverty, isolation, sexual coming of age, and abusive family relationships. The adjusted author wants us to feel good and she aims, at times, toward that goal depriving us of knowing the reality of growing up under the impoverished conditions of her youth. If things were so rosy on Mango Street, why was she so eager to escape? The other thing that bothers my sleep is that the author is so full of herself her ego often gets in the way of effective story telling. Almost everything is about her and there is no real understanding or even an attempt at understanding the others and their viewpoints. If you think my criticism of her solipsistic personality unjust, you haven’t read her 2009 introduction.

In A House on Mango Street, the author, Sandra Cisneros, describes the life of young Esperanza’s growing up in the rural area of Chicago. This book tastefully describes the hard topics of discrimination and assault but also is at some points hard to follow due to the vagueness in the chapters.
In a summary, Esperanza, being a young hispanic girl in the 50’s was a very hard thing to go through. In her first job she was kissed by an old man who “[kissed her] hard on the mouth and [didn’t] let go,” for just one example (55). She lives on the poor side of friend and faces discrimination anywhere she goes. She goes through life experiencing assault, hardship, friendships, family issues and more. It is somewhat heartwarming and somewhat terrifying read.
I really enjoyed the way the other wrote this book. The story is grouped into small anecdotes instead of the normal chronologically written books. Each chapter is 2-5 pages making the book a quick read. Although the book does not have much depth to it, it is a fascinating read and adds many topics that you would not expect to appear within this book. The author uses lots of great comparisons like “my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring.” This book was a good and simple read but did not hit me the way a 5 star book would so that is why I gave it 4 stars.
I did not truly dislike any part of the book. I think it was a very nicely written book, tastefully covering a wide range of topics. Although like I previously mentioned, it is not a book of depth. It does cause much deep thinking and analyzing so if you are looking for a hard read this is not the book for you. But if you are looking for a easy and interesting read, A House on Mango Street is a great choice.

I like the way how the book is written, the plot is very sincere and involving

Estaba en una racha de empezar libros y dejarlos como a 3/4 y este librito está tan bello, profundo y fácil de leer que lo termine completo en tiempo récord.
Lo amé mucho.