The House on Mango Street

Reviews (See all 943) Write a reviewfor this

It's a hit!

Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street was assigned to my Challenge English class my sophomore year of high school. The teacher told us about t... (show more)

Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street was assigned to my Challenge English class my sophomore year of high school. The teacher told us about the unique writing style that came with the novel and I was eager to explore a new piece of literature.

The House on Mango Street didn't disappoint. The vignettes were filled with similes, metaphors, alliteration, and personification. Cisneros has a beautiful use of diction which helped me, as the reader, clearly picture the settings and what was going on.

I also enjoyed how you had to think about what the vignettes were about. Some were easier to figure out than others. Cisneros' writing style allowed the reader to dig deeper into the vignettes to come up with a clearer view of what was happening. The story wasn't laid out before you on a silver platter and I liked that.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has never read vignettes or to anyone who loves vignettes. The House on Mango Street is truly a work of art. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook User

No, it's a flop!

I was not impressed by this book. There was no coherent narrative to speak of throughout the book, just very short "vignettes" that rarely connect ... (show more)

I was not impressed by this book. There was no coherent narrative to speak of throughout the book, just very short "vignettes" that rarely connect to let the reader gain any attachment to the story at hand. The one benefit of this is that the book is a very quick read, so it doesn't waste much of your time.

Another thing this author did that irritated me was pretentiously over-using analogies that didn't make any sense. Such as: "the piece of paper that smelled like a dime," and other such nonsense.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see why this book has gotten the praise that it got. Do yourself a favor before buying this book: open it up to a random page and just read through it. Now ask yourself if it is worth your time to read through basically 100 more pages of that exact same style. If interested then go ahead and buy it. (show less)

 

 

by Isaac Broyles

More Reviews

• 
  

  I admired this book from the beginning a picked it up. It did, however, have its boring parts. Other than that the peotic styles that have been incorporated into a narrative enhance the book's quality in a sense of written and verbal language. The metaphors in these books, such as the one in "Darius and the Clouds" are clever and I give the author credit for that. The author also has a good depiction not only of Chicago and its racism, but putting it in the point of view of a young ... (show more)

  I admired this book from the beginning a picked it up. It did, however, have its boring parts. Other than that the peotic styles that have been incorporated into a narrative enhance the book's quality in a sense of written and verbal language. The metaphors in these books, such as the one in "Darius and the Clouds" are clever and I give the author credit for that. The author also has a good depiction not only of Chicago and its racism, but putting it in the point of view of a young girl. This girl fails to understand why the people of her society view her people in such a negative way. The naive girl also brings the theme of growing up into the book because the girl is young and does not understand how the world works such as in the vignette "Born Bad".

  This book is a wonderful book to read, and the vignettes make it divided more easily because you may only need to read a page or so to understnad the purpose of it. The author makes it short and sweet, which is sometimes better than an overdescriptive book. (show less)

   

   

  by Taylor Mac Anabadha on Mar 03, 2009 at 01:49AM

  Already read

  Is this review helpful? yes no
   
• 
  

  Double Dutch Time
  Is it a novel?
  YesNoMaybe

  Is it a classic?
  YesNoMaybe

  Did I like it?
  YesNoMaybe

  About midway Esperanza,the narrator of The House on Mango Street, and her friends are skipping rope and talking about the development of hips. They begin to make up new rhymes with hips and walking with hips as the theme, and ending with the classic Yes,No, Maybe...a childhood variation of fortune telling. The word that you trip up on is the answer. As far as this books status, even ... (show more)

  Double Dutch Time
  Is it a novel?
  YesNoMaybe

  Is it a classic?
  YesNoMaybe

  Did I like it?
  YesNoMaybe

  About midway Esperanza,the narrator of The House on Mango Street, and her friends are skipping rope and talking about the development of hips. They begin to make up new rhymes with hips and walking with hips as the theme, and ending with the classic Yes,No, Maybe...a childhood variation of fortune telling. The word that you trip up on is the answer. As far as this books status, even its actual genre, I really think it is going to be a question of where you trip up with it.

  First of all, it is a novel in the slenderest of ways. The basic narrative is the coming of age of a young Latina, Esperanza, who is growing up in a Chicago barrio. While poverty is the rule there, Esperanza's family is lucky in that they own their own house. Poverty, abuse, sexual exploitation, which runs both ways, are some of the threads of the story. But these are countered with threads of hope, friendship, family, and dreams. Together the author weaves a poetic braid of sombre and gay strands.

  Here's my problem. The vignettes which make up the novel too often fell flat for me. If you aren't going to develop a scenario, then it had better have slap-you-in-the-face power. These 1-2-3 page vignettes were not at all well developed, nor were they quite as vivid as they should be. Where they should have exploded on the page, they sort of just hung there leaving me without a clue as to what to do with them. Sort of like New Year's decorations after New Year's. "Well, they're still sparkly enough. I think they might do for next year's party. But.. maybe I'll throw them out." Worst of all I never developed a keen sense of Esperanza or her world.

  I also have a problem with repetition. The repetition of phrases and words instead of adding a poetic flavor just annoyed me and made the prose seem juvenile. There is poetic prose and there is prose that should have been written as poems. This for me was the latter. (show less)

   

   

  by Lisa Hope Lucia Vierra-Moore on Jan 05, 2010 at 01:47AM

  Already read

  Is this review helpful? yes no
   
• See all reviews
  Write a review