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The House on Mango Street

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago - Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world--from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

"Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage...and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one." --The New York Times Book Review

The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. "In English my name means hope," she says. "In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting."

Told in a series of vignettes--sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous--Cisneros's masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis's Main Street or Toni Morrison's Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one's story and of being proud of where you're from.


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110 pages

Average rating: 7.11

167 RATINGS

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8 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Anonymous
Nov 20, 2024
7/10 stars
It was really good, but it kind of reminded me of like reading poetry, and I struggled to read poetry so proceeded at your own caution
Anonymous
Nov 18, 2024
6/10 stars
A little book largely inspired by the life of the author herself. It shows the challenges of growing up in an unwealthy Hispanic-American family/neighbourhood where you are expected to follow certain behaviours and codes to be a woman. I liked how the author used imagery in her writing to bring more life to the prose along with her incorporation of racism, sexism and the identity crisis of the Mexican immigrants and their second-generation children. I liked that the author didn't shy away from bringing up some valid circumstances(which are faced by the poor Latin American second generations) in this book.
On the other hand, I don't think I like the core writing itself cause it sometimes felt too much jumbled up and the paragraph breaks were inconsistent too. I know this is supposed to be written from a perspective of a young girl but I didn't find much difference in the latter portion too.

3. 75 stars from me.
JulieB
Jul 04, 2024
10/10 stars
Pure poetry.
Katerina N L
Apr 09, 2024
10/10 stars
:)
hazellevesque
Feb 02, 2024
9/10 stars
It is a beautiful fiction poetry about a Mexican girl growing up in mixed neighborhood in Chicago. I loved the play with the words, and as someone also Latina I could see myself in the character shoes and so much reminded me of my childhood as well. I highly recommend!

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