...and I’m glad I finally got around to it.

It’s only 110 pages, but I wouldn’t really call it a novella. There’s an overall plot, but it’s told through a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes. It follows the life of Esperanza, a little girl growing up in a “bad part” of Chicago. She’s a very observant little girl, and in through her eyes we see the position of women in her culture. We also see how “outsiders” react to her run-down home, and how this affects her. By the end of the book, she’s started to come into her own, and it’s clear how her experiences have shaped her.

The language Cisneros uses is alive, and she seems to spend more energy making it effective than she spends making it grammatically correct. I can’t explain the language eloquently, so here’s a quote from the first chapter:

I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it. The house on Mango Street isn’t it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how these things go.

This is definitely worth reading, especially because it goes so fast and you get so much out of it.