book data
11,656 ratings,
3.62
average rating, 1,090 reviews
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published
April 3rd 1991
(first published 2002)
by Vintage
binding
Paperback, 128 pages
isbn
0679734775
(isbn13: 9780679734772)
description
Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is Sandra Cisneros's greatly admired novel of a young girl growi...more
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avg 3.62
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
The description on goodreads describes this as a novel. It is not a novel. It isn't a collection of stories either. The word is "vignette"--snapshots of significant moments, people, in young Esperanza's day-to-day life, sprinkled with her understanding that she will leave this House on Mango Street, and the Houses not on Mango Street that could be on Mango Street, and write, but that Mango Street will never leave her. There is no central plot line or conflict. Some characters go a...more
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Read in March, 2007
(Original pub date: 1984)
This is another one of those "reading list classics" that I figured I should try. Especially since it's really short! ;) The book consists entirely of vignettes from the author's childhood in a poor section of Chicago. The writing is beautiful and spare - no vignette is longer that 2 or 3 pages (and the font is huge and widely spaced). It reads like poetry, really - the words are potent and evocative rather than exhaustively descriptive.
My...more
This is another one of those "reading list classics" that I figured I should try. Especially since it's really short! ;) The book consists entirely of vignettes from the author's childhood in a poor section of Chicago. The writing is beautiful and spare - no vignette is longer that 2 or 3 pages (and the font is huge and widely spaced). It reads like poetry, really - the words are potent and evocative rather than exhaustively descriptive.
My...more
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Read in February, 1995
She is a good poet who penned a mediocre "novel." I tell you, it is on the slim side of a novella. Physically, the book is short (maybe 5/7 the height of a standard paperbook), 12 point font, double-spaced, 134 pages long with 44 chapters and each one is set apart with its own half page. Oh, and the content? Just what you'd expect. Why, I bet Cisneros spent a whole afternoon writing what you could read in an afternoon.
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recommends it for:
Nobody
I must admit, out of all the books I've read, this is one of the worst. The writing style is boring, the story: not moving, and the premise is even sleepier then Ameno Acid injected into a Ronald Regan Film. Yuck.
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76 comments
This book was extreamly bad and while reading it I wanted to shoot my self, it was as bad as "To Kill A Mockingbird"
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to "that by:
My spanish teacherrecommends it for: people who enjoy really wierd book
This was without a doubt one of the worst books I have EVER read. Now, before I go any further, I would like to say that when I read this book, I read it in Spanish. Because Spanish is not my first language, this created some difficulties understanding the material.
With that said, it was still a bad book. There was no actual plot, because this story was a biography of the author. In other words, if you swap out a few key names, it will be the story of the writer's life. In other wor...more
With that said, it was still a bad book. There was no actual plot, because this story was a biography of the author. In other words, if you swap out a few key names, it will be the story of the writer's life. In other wor...more
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I've read this book twice. The first was by myself a few years ago, around fifth grade. That wasn't the right time to read it, because I couldn't appreciate the beauty and simplicity in Sandra Cisnero's writing.
This year, we read most of "The House on Mango Street" in English with my amazing teacher Mrs. Rudin. Before reading it, however, we read a poem (or incredibly short story - it was a page) by S.C. first, to get a sense of her writing. It was incredibly beautiful, ab...more
This year, we read most of "The House on Mango Street" in English with my amazing teacher Mrs. Rudin. Before reading it, however, we read a poem (or incredibly short story - it was a page) by S.C. first, to get a sense of her writing. It was incredibly beautiful, ab...more
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I had the opportunity to meet Sandra in one of her book readings and I was so overcome with emotions I was part babbling, part crying and part laughing with joy. I had to thank her because there was finally someone in the literary world that understood me and was able to tell stories that were similar to mine growing up as a Mexican in Chicago. I adore this book because I finally felt like I wasn't alone! I've seen so many stereotypes of hispanic people and I never felt like I identified with an...more
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Read in June, 2008
I did not care for the style of writing...each small chapter(1.5-2 pgs.)(vignette), is a snippet of what life is like on Mango Street for Esperanza. Tbe idea of these snippets (vignettes) is great, but they never kept my attention or painted a vivid picture for me.
It is not a continuous plot, that keeps you hanging. I'm not used to this style, so it really didnt "grab" me.
I was hoping that throughout the book I would connect with the character or "feel" somethin...more
It is not a continuous plot, that keeps you hanging. I'm not used to this style, so it really didnt "grab" me.
I was hoping that throughout the book I would connect with the character or "feel" somethin...more
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The significant moments of one teenager's life. In this collection of vignettes, Sandra Cisneros effectively describes the other side of life that some of us would rather choose to ignore. She shows that there is also a own unique life in these people; their longings, dreams, the hardships and sentiments of their lives. Through these vignettes, we are provided with another perspective of how life varies amongst different people, and how if we will try to achieve our dreams, one day, they will co...more
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8 comments
Read in August, 2007
This is my all time favorite--it's short and poignant. You can read it quickly for sheer enjoyment (it reads poetically) or you can dig your heels in and really take note of Latino culture. In all reality though, one of the reasons I love it so much is that it doesn't only discuss Latino culture but middle and lower class America. And Cisneros alsos really brings out slippery domestic issues women face everywhere. It's sweet, it's sad, It's a bit scary and funny--IT'S 100 pages or so of WONDERFU...more
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Read in February, 2009
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The House on Mango Street to many people was viewed as this excellent book. People though it was appealing that there was an unreliable narrator and that they need to assume or figure out what the true meaning was. To me this kind of book does not appeal at all to me.
It is about a young girl growing up in a sort of Hispanic ghetto area and having to deal with the challenges of life. Although she is nothing but an average girl, in the book not so average and very disturbing, sad ...more
It is about a young girl growing up in a sort of Hispanic ghetto area and having to deal with the challenges of life. Although she is nothing but an average girl, in the book not so average and very disturbing, sad ...more
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Read in November, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros isn't classified as a novel. In other words it was a type of book that included many different stories. I wasn't used to this way of writing because each chapter was less than four - five pages. Even though it was a new experience for me, I absolutely loved this book. I admired the way Sandra Cisneros uses metaphors and simalies to describe Mango Street. Esperanze the main character explains the meaning of how it feels to live in Mango Street a t...more
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Read in December, 2006
The House on Mango Street is obviously not for everyone. I do, however, think it is a good example of how Latina authors are playing with the concept of the novel. Cisneros changes the structure of the novel in order to tell her story instead of changing her story to fit the classic narrative structure of the novel. I think it works well, and the story flows beautifully and poetically with a young life captured in few words.
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Read in January, 2009
This book that I read was a different kind of book. It wasn't your typical chapter book. Throughout the whole book it was more like series of short stories. The longest story was only two pages long!! The shortest was only a few sentences. This is a reflective piece of writing because of the way she is telling the short stories. Then near the end of the book, the stories begin to be told as a narrative writing. This book I can see either a guy or girl reading however a girl is narrating it ...more
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Read in August, 2008
This book is based on the life of a Mexican-American girl, Esperanza Cordero who moves to a house on Mango Street with her poor family. The house is located in a crowded Latino neighborhood in Chicago, a city where many of the poor areas are racially segregated. Through the book, Esperanza becomes more mature, and gains a lot of experiences; she makes friends (Lucy or Rachel), grows hips, develops her first crush, endures sexual assault, and etc. Later on, Esperanza meets another girl, Sally...more
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Read in June, 2004
I once read “Linoleum Roses” in a short story anthology prior to reading the novel and, after reading the novel in its entirety, I can honestly say it’s much better served as a chapter than as a single story.
“The House on Mango Street” centers on the world of a young girl named Esperanza. Each chapter is very short, some shorter than 300 words, seemingly disjointed and loosely connected little memories of things and people. All told from first person narrative, of observati...more
“The House on Mango Street” centers on the world of a young girl named Esperanza. Each chapter is very short, some shorter than 300 words, seemingly disjointed and loosely connected little memories of things and people. All told from first person narrative, of observati...more
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Read in December, 2008
What a scrumptiously delightful book. I picked this copy up at Goodwill, simply because I have never read it and felt I should. Then I found out it was a "coming of age" novel and inwardly groaned to myself. I have had some distasteful reactions to a couple of coming of age novels, the most recent being The Last Picture Show (To paraphrase, my review of that was " I was less than swept away by this book. In fact, I didn't finish it, because I just couldn't stomach it. I gues...more
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Read in June, 2009
The House On Mango Street is a "Coming of Age," novel made up of short vignettes that was published in 1984. The title is in reference to the house that Esperanza and her family move into at the beginning of the novel. This novel is written by Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros who grew up as the third child and only daughter in a family of seven. This novel is about a young Hispanic girl, Esperanza and her life growing up in an impoverished Chicano neighborhood. Esperanza is det...more
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quotes from this book
"You can never have too much sky . You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it."
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