The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Pages: 110
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Synopsis (From the Back Cover):

Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is the story of Esperanza Condero, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. For Esperanza, Mango Street is a desolate landscape of concrete and run-down tenements, where she discovers the hard realities of life - the fetters of class and gender, the specter of racial enmity, the mysteries of sexuality and more. Capturing her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories, Esperanza is able to rise above hopelessness, and create for herself "a house all my own... quiet as snow, a space for myself to go," in the midst of her oppressive surroundings.

Review:

I like the synopsis better in than the book. The synopsis makes you think that you are about to go on an incredible journey though on girls coming of age in Chicago. Technically you do, but in bits and pieces, very short pieces. The pieces are so short that they could be an entry in a diary or an outline of a long story. The details are scares and make the book less enjoyable (IMO).

I found the style of the story made it hard for me to connect with any of the characters, including Esperanza the narrator. There was the possibility to make great detailed characters and get the reader full engaged in the community in which Esperanza lived. But that did not happen.

Overall, I was very disappointed.