The House on Mango Street

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Summary: Cisnero's vivid ideas make the story come alive.
Review: Sandra Cisnero's makes her reading easy, but interesting in the same way. By making little chapters she makes the reader want to keep reading. The book is basically a closet of her life and the stories involved in it.

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Summary: Explore an enchanting collection of stories.
Review: We explore the life of a young Latino girl living in a poverty stricken area of an American inner city. Through metaphoric language and vivid description, we get a clear picture of the thoughts and feelings of this young girl, Esperanza, and the people around her. Many different emotions are expressed throughout the stories that make us laugh, and make us realize the true hardships of a poor family struggling to make it in a competitive society. When we read this book, we get the true feeling that we are a part of these many dynamic characters lives.

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Summary: Sandra Cisrneros is an avid, colorful writer.
Review: Sandra obtains the unique ability to describe ordinary events in a colorful and vivid reality. I enjoyed her book emensly especially the chapter titled Names.This particular chapter explains a childs recognition of his own name with respects as to whether he likes it or not. This is a reality of young children because the kids are susceptible to being teased if their name is unusual. I thought it was great that she took a small event and added to it. Although she is exceptional at describing life's journeys, she is sometimes too descriptive and touches on personal and damaging experiences. In the chapter "What Sally Said" ,Cisneros describes a young child being beaten by her father. Although she described the event like it really occurs in life, I thought it was an unnecessary part of the book. It was too personal and it bothered me to read. The book is a charming display of a young girls image of the trials and benefits of life.

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Summary: Explore the metaphoric stories of Sandra Cisneros
Review: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a detailed collection of anectdotes pertaining to the life of a Latino American girl, Esperanza. Cisneros effectively uses the most intriguing metaphors to express emotions, ideas, and character. Her descriptive writing allows for easy reading and creates an atmoshpere as if you were there. Also, this hard-to-put-down book taps in to the minds of people of all different ages and races, bringing them all together into one world in which we all have issues in our lives.

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Summary: Cisnero's vivid ideas makes each chapter seem like a story.
Review: Sandra Cisnero makes her reading really easy by making short chapters which makes it interesting. By making little chapters with vivid descriptions and ideas, she makes each chapter a part of the big picture. Her book is like a closet of stories of her life and that's what makes it interesting and suspenseful. When reading her book it was easy for me to imagine what was going on because of her imaginative similies and metaphors.

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Summary: Cisneros Greatest Qualities of Writing
Review: My favorite quality of Cisneros's work is her precision. By this I mean, her ability to give a brief yet descriptive account of a portion of her life. For instance, "The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn't a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it's not the house we'd thought we'd get." This is a brief yet very descriptive family, from these fifty six word we learn that her family is of low income, they are making progress in the world of economics, that she has very high hopes, and she is disappointed that these hopes have not been met. Yet even though she is disappointed she is very thankful for what her and her family have. Another quote to support my position, is the entire chapter/metaphor of "My Name". This entire chapter is one huge metaphor, she is comparing her name to all that she wants her name to be, everything she doesn't want her name to be, why she likes her name, and why she despises of it. In this chapter Cisneros captured my attention with opening line, "In English my name means hope." At this point as the reader you're captivated by the intriguingness of the statement. Almost like she has taken a statement and stated it as if it were a question. I immediately found myself asking, What is she hopeful for?, upon reading the opening remark. The only thing that I did not enjoy about the book was that many of the chapters were irrelevant and not interesting to me as the reader. I feel as though some of the chapters were thrown in there just to take up space. The chapter about hair, for instance, I found very random and not pertaining to much of the rest of the book. One thing that I had mixed feelings about was the significant lack of a plot. At times you think this is boring, what is her point, wow this is out the blue. However, I have found that this type of writing is more captivating to the audience, and in fact more is learned by using this structure of writing.

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Summary: A review of the incredible novel, House on Mango Street
Review: The House on Mango Street is a novel filled with sudden explosions of powerful emotion. Just when the reader feels serene with the book's atmosphere, a shocking statement or scene jumps out of it's pages. "My aunt, a little oyster, a little piece of meat on an open shell for us to look at." This is just some of the amazing metaphoric language expressed that draws the reader into these stories. Sandy Cisneros keeps her chapters short which reflects her great ability to create wild imagery in such a consise way. The author deals with personal life stuggles; some deep others trifling. An example is when them main character, Ezperanza, explains how she feels about her name. "At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth." Although some of her troubles may seem childish they are something we can all relate to. Having these inevitable commonalities with this book only makes the reading all more enjoyable. The House on Mango Street will bring up a lot of questions about of our own lives and yet answer so many more.

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Summary: A novel whose success lies in in it's simplicity.
Review: In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros has successfully taken several controversial issues such as immigration, poverty, religion, and rape and brought those issues into human form. Cisneros shows us that these are not just issues with statistics attached to them. They are issues with people and families attached to them. They are issues that affect everyone they touch; even a young girl who through her naivete, innocence, and insight shows us her understanding of this world. Hopefully everyone who reads this novel will listen to Esperanza's view and learn from it.

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Summary: A must read before the millinium!!
Review: Sandra's claim to fame, The House on Mango Street, will be found in every college bookstore. The academic student must read this delightful collection of cuentitos or vignettes that Cisneros has magically created. The book is devoted to those that live inside and outside the sometimes cartoon like visions in her stories. The stories themselves are titled with wit that instantly grabs the readers curiosity. "Hairs", "Alicia who sees mice", "The Family of Little Feet", " Chanclas", "Four Skinny Trees", etc., are examples of the one or sometimes two or three page stories that captures the eyes and thoughts. All should read these small moments on the life of a child that lives on the never famous street called Mango. You too will agree that "You can never have too much sky".(in "Darius & the Clouds") A.S

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Summary: Very compeling, shows an emergance of a hot new author
Review: Cisneros does a wonderfull job weaving both the good in people and the bad in the society in which Esperanza lives together. It discusses the loss of innocence and the struggle of a teenager living through the hardships of her life in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. It tells of her de-virginization, which is historically reviewed as the ultimate loss of innocence. You are no longer pure after such an act. The only down side was that you couldn't get deep into the book, because every time you get intrigued, Cisneros starts a new vignette. I enjoyed it very much, and strongly recomened it