A review by marycat203
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

4.0

I picked this up in honor of Latinx Heritage Month without realizing that it was a collection of short stories and was disappointed to miss the immersive experience that I cherish reading a novel, but no regrets. Sandra Cisneros is an evocative writer - her vivid details and lively metaphors bring the characters and scenes of Mango Street to life with beautiful brevity. In the introduction, she explains how she “experiments, creating a text that is as succinct and flexible as poetry, snapping sentences into fragments so that the reader pauses, making each sentence serve her and not the other way around.” Her style and the voice of the narrator, Esperanzo Cordero (who has “decided not to grow up tame”), kept me turning the pages. These poignant, often heartbreaking vignettes turned out to be a perfect way to celebrate Latinx heritage.