Helpful Score: 3
Not what I expected, but a beautiful book from start to finish.
Helpful Score: 2
A wonderful memoir of a child in a small ethnically diverse community. Very heartfelt and honest.
Helpful Score: 2
I read this book for an International Literature class--it was great. I felt like I experienced (at least one woman's view of) latino culture. A great read for people who aren't latino and are interested in learning more about what it's like to be.
Helpful Score: 2
Excellent book! Great story, I have never read another book like it.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a wonderful book for young latina girls to read. It a coming of age classic!
Helpful Score: 2
One of my all-time favorite books! Cisneros has a beautiful, unique style!
Helpful Score: 2
Once again a peek into a different culture and the values that shape lives.
Helpful Score: 2
This book was capitvating. It's the story of a young hispanic girl's journey into adulthood. Even though I read it for school, I could not put it down!
Helpful Score: 2
This book grips the reader from the beginning and doesn't let go. Instead of traditional linear story telling, her life is told in scenes and vignettes. This book is beautifully written and should be read by everyone ages 14 and up. It is a unique look into the life of an Hispanic American girl.
Helpful Score: 2
As a Latina, I treasured this look into the life of my co-madres growing up in the tough barrios of Chicago. Short but sweet in a melancholy way. This is not so much a novel as a series of sketches that will teach you more about us as Hispanic women than any workshop.
Helpful Score: 2
Story about a Spanish girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago very good book.
Helpful Score: 2
Excellent insights into growing up and knowing a wide variety of personalities. Each chapter is a memory that shapes who one is and a reminder that we should not forget where we come from.
Gripping, poignant, and not easily put asside
Gripping, poignant, and not easily put asside
Helpful Score: 1
awesome, atmoespheric, amazing!
Helpful Score: 1
pretty good, very fast read, I liked the writing style
Helpful Score: 1
This is a series of interconnected short stories about a girl named Esperanza and her new neighborhood that she moves to with her family, on Mango Street. This is Sandra Cisneros' first book and is fit for young adults as well as grown-ups. I read this a couple of years ago for a college assignment and many times since then; I absolutely love this book. It is a very good book and makes a few points about growing up female and Latina in the United States. Short and easy to read with chapters of only a page or two.
Helpful Score: 1
Esperanza lives on Mango Street, located in a poor area of Chicago, and writer of the short, short stories in this little book. Her goal is to leave Mango Street but she cannot forget the many people she knew and the numerous experiences that colored her young life. Some stories are her own while others are based on observations of people she knows and their interactions with others. One thing is certain: these tales were written for a YA audience by a beginning author who will never forget Mango Street.
The author is a poet who also writes fiction. Both her poetry and stories reflect her Latin background. Short poems are scattered through many of the tales. Descriptions and characterizations are pithy and smart. Those about the beautiful Sally are eloquent. âSally is the girl with eyes like Egypt and nylons the color of smoke. The boys in school think she's beautiful because her hair is shiny black like raven feathers and when she laughs, she flicks her hair back like a satin shawl over her shoulders and laughs (p. 81). Such wonderful phrasing were used to describe. Comments about Sally's advice, comments and life complete the picture.
The author is a poet who also writes fiction. Both her poetry and stories reflect her Latin background. Short poems are scattered through many of the tales. Descriptions and characterizations are pithy and smart. Those about the beautiful Sally are eloquent. âSally is the girl with eyes like Egypt and nylons the color of smoke. The boys in school think she's beautiful because her hair is shiny black like raven feathers and when she laughs, she flicks her hair back like a satin shawl over her shoulders and laughs (p. 81). Such wonderful phrasing were used to describe. Comments about Sally's advice, comments and life complete the picture.
Helpful Score: 1
Really liked it.
Helpful Score: 1
very good stories - great read!
Helpful Score: 1
I enjoyed reading this. It's pretty easy to read, but has good play on your emotions. Liked the writing style. Helps if you know the author's background information and such.
Helpful Score: 1
great story and easy to read.
I really enjoyed this book, wonderful stories.
Cisneros writes with a poetic prose that supasses anyting I have read thus far. Fantastic and I hghly recommend it to any lover of language and culture.
It was ok-short and sweet, but just ok.
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is a series of prose vignettes (with a little bit of poetry thrown in) that chronicles a pre-teenaged girl, Esperanza, growing up on Mango Street in Chicago. The prose is beautifully written, the stories hauntingly sad at times. Each chapter is only 1 to 3 pages long, each describing the people and places that Esperanza encounters. The overriding theme of the book is how Esperanza belongs but doesn't want to belong to Mango Street. She is and is not Mango Street.
Overall, I'd rate this book a 9 out of 10, and I plan to keep it on my bookshelf for the time being.
Overall, I'd rate this book a 9 out of 10, and I plan to keep it on my bookshelf for the time being.
Very unique. Quick read that you will only enjoy if you read between the lines.
An okay book, House on Mango Street really just isn't my cup of tea. Between not grabbing my attention and rambling on about the houses and the 'who's sleeping with who', I just couldn't appreciate much of the book.
Well written, I will be reading it again.
I hated this book. It is a collection of exceptionally stupid and boring poetry. However if that sort of thing intrests you this may be a good fit.
great book
Did I miss something here? So many people have raved about this book and have said that it has to be read. Why exactly? I mean, it's good. I guess. It's not bad. But it's not something that is needed IMO.
I highly doubt it would grab many young reluctant readers and if it did I'd certainly be surprised. Some of the word choices were just so damn out there it seemed like they were used for shock value and nothing else.
Were these short stories or chapters of some strange sort? Half a page isn't a "story" to me. It's a few paragraphs at most. It has to be damn good to be considered a story if it's that short and these were just.... well, nothing really. They didn't suck but they didn't make it anywhere near where they could be considered short stories.
If they were chapters all I can say is holy hell.
I don't know, it's obvious Sandra Cisneros has a way with words - for the most part - and I'm not saying the book is horrible or that it sucks. Maybe my expectations were too high because of all I've heard. I can't see myself recommending it to anyone in the future. Or even thinking about it to be honest.
I highly doubt it would grab many young reluctant readers and if it did I'd certainly be surprised. Some of the word choices were just so damn out there it seemed like they were used for shock value and nothing else.
Were these short stories or chapters of some strange sort? Half a page isn't a "story" to me. It's a few paragraphs at most. It has to be damn good to be considered a story if it's that short and these were just.... well, nothing really. They didn't suck but they didn't make it anywhere near where they could be considered short stories.
If they were chapters all I can say is holy hell.
I don't know, it's obvious Sandra Cisneros has a way with words - for the most part - and I'm not saying the book is horrible or that it sucks. Maybe my expectations were too high because of all I've heard. I can't see myself recommending it to anyone in the future. Or even thinking about it to be honest.
this was a cute book by sandra cisneros.. i love her work
A beautiful series of short vignettes about the life of Esperanza, a young Chicano woman with dreams of something better. Heartbreaking, joyful - I love this book!
I enjoyed this book.
A girl coming of age in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, uses poems and stories to express thoughts and emotions about her oppressive environment.
"Vigorous, punch and imagistic. Cisneros knows exactly what she's after in her narrative -- and achieves it with admirable grace." -- San Antonio Express-News.
"Sandra Cisneros is one of the most brilliant of today's young writers. Her work is sensitive, alert, nuancefull...rich with music and picture." --Gwendolyn Brooks
Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence... is the story of a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago.
"Sandra Cisneros is one of the most brilliant of today's young writers. Her work is sensitive, alert, nuancefull...rich with music and picture." --Gwendolyn Brooks
Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence... is the story of a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago.
This boom was ok.
Good book..just not my reading style.
Excellent book that was on my wishlist-I found another copy to share here on PBS!
A series of vingnettes forms a novel of a young girs growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. You chronicle the life of a young girl coming into her power and inventing for herself what she will become.
"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 growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Acclaimed by critics, beloved by children, their parents and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city grade school to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, it has entered the canon of coming-or-age classics." (back cover)
I didn't like this book very much. There are notes on some of the pages. I guess the person before did it
