The House on Mango Street

Rating:
Summary: I like it
Review: Over all the novel was good and well written. Good comparisons were made in the book. The chapters were little stories in themselves. You don't have to remember things chapter to chapter, which makes for good reading. I finally felt like there is someone else out there that feels like myself. Esperanza feels she needs a house she can point to and be proud. I feel that same way, I am embarrassed of my house. Someday I will have a nice house. I would recommend this to others... a fine reading book.

Rating:
Summary: Life on Mango
Review: What I thought of the novel was that it was pretty good; it was the first book I have finished in a long time. What I like about the book was it was a fast pace book and had a lot of description and a good story about the way Esperanza grew up and her friends and family . What I didn't like was that sometimesI got lost, but I would find my place and understand a little later on. The authors writing style was a little different then most books I reading the fact that she use short sweet chapters that told much in a little space. when I read the book it made me think of the way my cousins are. I would recommend this book to anyone that doesn't like to read because I don't, and I liked this book.

Rating:
Summary: mango street
Review: I actually liked the novel. It is the first book that i've ever finished. I liked how each chapter was completely different.so it never really gor boaring. It really made it seem as if a girlfrom the ghetto was truely writing it. It didn't seem to affect me; it just made me think about different senarios. They don't seem similar to me.I woulod recommend this book to someone else because it is the first book that I ever wanted to finish. So it must have been interesting for me to read it.

Rating:
Summary: House of Humility
Review: Yesterday, I finished the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Once I was finished, I felt very moved by the author's story. Her writing evolves throughout the book, slowly but surely, just as she had to evolve from a young girl into a young woman. Her house on Mango Street was not a beautiful house to say the least but over the course of the novel she learns to accept it because it is and always will be apart of her. The simple, almost childish, writing style is very easy to read and keeps you intersted because it is as though it is many short stories put together to make one diary. A diary of a young girl who is forced to grow up in a harsh and uncomprimising world and decides she's gonna make it.

Rating:
Summary: Not for children.
Review: I confess I came to "The House on Mango Street" expecting the familiar themes of escaping but giving back to the barrio as well as overcoming the barriers of gender, race, physical beauty or its lack, language, poverty and social class. I found those but, in addition, some things I hadn't counted on. The book is, above all, a rite of passage of the artist, a deep and dark psychological journey into a landscape not merely of memory but of pained consciousness, scarred emotions, and lost but not entirely relinquished innocense.

Younger readers are unlikely to understand fully, or even make much sense out of, the novel's two juxtaposed, climactic chapters. In "The Monkey Garden," the archetypal playground of innocence becomes a violently contradictory semantic playing field in which words and meanings dissociate, contradict one another, then break down completely somewhere in between the narrator's death wish and her "savior" complex. Does the narrator allow us to come up for air? Forget that. The narrator's pain transfers immediately from that of thwarted rescuer of the innocent victim to that of angry accuser of the betrayer, the same friend whose name ("Sally") resonates, shrilly and eerily, obsessively and unremittingly through the grotesque carnival that replaces the violated garden. The narrator's imagery in this chapter, entitled "Red Clowns," suggests that she herself has been the victim of a literal rape, though the illogic of the preceding contradictory emotions and the stridency of the language argues more for a metaphoric interpretation. Her rage over the betrayal of her childhood garden of innocense by her close friend makes the image of rape both less distant and more horrifying for its violation of our own linguistic space: once implanted, the narrator's language can't be dislodged from our consciousness.

Have we experienced an odyssey of the artist's self, or a harrowing ride on the chapter's carnival tilt-a-whirl? In the novel's last chapter, the narrator admits, "I like to tell stories. I tell them inside my head." Then she proclaims her escape from the house on Mango Street along with its replacement by a Woolf-like "house" of her own. And, by the way, she will return to Mango Street one day. I'm sure she will--whether as a welcomed celebrity or as an artist haunted by her past. But that statement is more a "forced" conclusion than "earned" closure. It's one of the few notes in this brief but provocative novel that doesn't ring true.

Rating:
Summary: Fock this book
Review: I did hear that the book was pretty good. But its not my kind of book. Its a pretty meaningful book that requires deep thought. I personally thought it was not quite good because there was a lack of direction in the book. It skips from one topic to another. It may be a good book, but I don't recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: The ugly house with boarded windows on Mango Street
Review: The House on Mango Street takes place in a Latino neighborhood on Chicago, around a house with boarded windows on Mango Street. The novel is portrayed through the eyes of a young girl growing up and becoming a woman. She battles obstacles of your average Mexican-American girl: gender, poverty, and race; where women were not to expect too much out of life. Esperanza, this girl who wants to become a poet, is self-consious about herself and ashamed to reside in such a run-down house. Her dreams begin to crack as she realizes, not evertyhing turns out like in your dreams. Through rough experiences with friendships, alienation, peverty, and death, Esperanza becomes stronger and moves on from Mango Street remaining true to herself and always optimistic. The novel progresses from a girl with low self-esteem that manages to blossom amidst the dirty streets and lives her dreams. This book was well done with a great sense of reality, that is not sugar-coated. Sandra wrote things as they were and shall be respected for that. You must admire her writing style, being one of the few authors confindent enough with themselves to use vignettes. Although a great book, I must inquire why it is on the 9th grade reading list? It is not a difficult book, nor is it too long to grasp the attentions of 10-year-olds. I would prefer if they entered this book on the 5th grade reading list, because, to me and several other peers, this book is much too simple for us, so therefore should begin with the younger people of our generation. All I am inferring, is that if you were a person age 12 and above, this book would fail to intereset you ass much as it would people in elementary schools. But, if you feel up to it, or just want something feast your eyes on, this is a book that should be on your list of choices.

Rating:
Summary: Not our type of a book!
Review: This book is not good for young children to read. I did not understand what is was talking about. Also the book is hard to follow. The book dosen't need to jump from on thing to another. I think this book should be ban from School librarys as soon as possible. I hope that after reading this book you might understand why I dont not like tis book. But maybe for older kids who are smart might understand.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is a little book with a big impact. You'll want to buy one to keep and one to pass on to your friends. You won't soon forget it.

Rating:
Summary: Wow, I was suprised by this book...
Review: When I first got this book, I expected to read a literary masterpiece. My teacher said it was good, and I took her word on it. Then I read the book... I cannot say that I have read a more dissapointing book in my entire life. I thought, "Hey, I will be able to relate to this book. I am a teenage girl, this will be a great read." Was I ever wrong. Sure, I have no Spanish heritage and I don't exactly live in the ghetto of a large city, but I should be able to stand it. I was not. I am still amazed I finished this book. From the confusion of not being able to tell what on earth she was talking about(I have taken French instead of Spanish) to not knowing who she was talking about(there are so many characters in this book that you could be dead before figuring out who she was talking about), this book goes beyond the level of bad. How on earth does it get so many good reviews? I am aware that all of you people that "loved this beautiful novel filled with poetry and inspiration" will run after me with your pitchforks, but people have the right not to suffer the same pain I have. Argh, this book is not worthy of the trees that were cut down for it. Take my advice, and when you see this book, run away!