The House on Mango Street

By Sandra Cisneros

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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. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9780345807199

Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. Internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction, she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Cisneros is the author of The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek, Loose Woman, and My Wicked Ways. She lives in the Southwest.

Reviews for The House on Mango Street

[chrystal_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Esperanza and her family didn't always live on Mango Street. Right off she says she can't remember all the houses they've lived in but "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 thought we'd get." Esperanza's childhood life in a Spanish-speaking area of Chicago is described in a series of spare, poignant, and powerful vignettes. Each story centers on a detail of her childhood: a greasy cold rice sandwich, a pregnant friend, a mean boy, how the clouds looked one time, something she heard a drunk say, her fear of nuns: "I always cry when nuns yell at me, even if they're not yelling." Esperanza's friends, family, and neighbors wander in and out of her stories; through them all Esperanza sees, learns, loves, and dreams of the house she will someday have, her own house, not on Mango Street.

[howifeelaboutbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was beautiful. I read it in one sitting because I was engrossed in it - I could picture the whole neighborhood and everyone who lived there. The descriptions were vivid, with unique wording. Some of the sentences were so amazing, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach after reading them. My personal favorite: "I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain."

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Just not my cup of tea. Short stories that wanted to be poetry but didn't quite succeed as either. Also, awfully depressing.

[quaintlittlehead · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cisneros writes this book with a perfect balance between the child who is discovering her world for the first time and the growing woman who can make sense of what she's seeing. In doing so, she invites us into her shoes without judging us for having lived outside of them. Deceptively simple, there is a great deal going on under the surface in these portraits of characters who are at once both intimate and distant. This is a uniquely poetic book.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Esperanza's family has lived in 3 different places that she can remember before the House on Mango Street. For every time her mother has another child the family needs a larger living space and they move.

Although, her parents dream of winning the lottery & buying the house of their dreams, they will never realize their dream.

The book is made up of 46 short stories about life in the House on Mango Street: we meet Esperanza's family, neighbors & neighbors' families/relatives. She describes life in a typical Chicago Latino Barrio/neighborhood.

The stories are well written and maintain a true to life voice. I am happy to have the opportunity to re-read this book.

[sdunford_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Magical, mystical and wonderful - I could read The House on Mango Street over and over.

[valerieandbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cisneros's vignette style (at least for this book) may not be for everyone, but I liked The House on Mango Street very much. Her background in poetry shines through here. It's not flowery, however, as the stories show the grittiness of one neighborhood in Chicago and the perspective of what it was like growing up Latina there. An evocative read.

[jennysbookbag.com · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I recommend that you read it, if you're on the fence about it.

[carmenere_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Author presents vignettes of people populating the neighborhood of Esperanza Cordero just when she was coming of age and confused about whether she is a young adult or a child.Lovely, lively and visual descriptions make this small book a keeper. Her writing is poetic with memorable lines you'll want to jot down.

[olivermagnus · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The House on Mango Street contains 44 short vignettes narrated by a young girl named Esperanza Cordero, who just moved with her family to Mango Street in the Chicago barrio. She hates the house because it is not a "real" house, like the one she sees on TV. Esperanza soon realizes that she does not belong to the race or class of people who live in the type of house she sees on TV. In the vignettes Esperanza attempts to let us experience some of the poverty, sexism and racism she sees on a daily basis. The book also talks about the importance of education among women in order to succeed in life and have an equal say in a society dominated by men. The House on Mango Street is full of characters that lack power and their struggle to move forward and make the best possible life for themselves.

I think this book also had some problems, especially with the portrayal of men characters. Almost every male character in the book seemed to be an abuser or a collaborator of the abusers. There are lots of bad men in the world but I wish the author had included some good ones as a counterpoint to the abusive fathers and rapists she has portrayed in her book. I also thought the book was loosely organized and very difficult to follow. The writing style was confusing, providing no room for an interesting analysis on the issues she was trying to highlight.

[deldevries · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting set of short stories. The forward by the author describes how her personal background and the desire for authentic telling of her own stories led to her writing. The audio version is read by the author. This packs a lot of meaning into the stories.

[katieloucks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved the different stories that were included.

[jolynne-4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it then, love it now.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a very "Mexican" book. It's the story of Esperanze who lives in a poor section of Chicago and struggles to stay in school.My sister-in-law introduced me to Cisneros' works, and I immediately fell in love with the author. There is something about her writing that just speaks to my soul. I recommended her works to two book clubs who found them to have "too much Spanish," but when I recently suggested Cisneros to a book group that focuses on Latino/a authors, she found an appreciative audience.I particularly liked her description of a child saying that when you turn 11, people forget that you are also 10 and 9 and 8 and 7 and 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1 inside. (I'm paraphrasing here.) Heck, I'm way older than that, but I still occasionally recognize the 5-year-old in me.I've read this book (and the companion Woman Hollering Creek) at least 3 times.

[readasaurus_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you teach middle school aged English Language Learners or Latino/a children, read this book as soon as possible. Cisneros captures Mexican-American culture like none other using poetry, prose, Spanish words, and culturally specific settings and events. "My Name" is a great story to use on the first day of school when children are learning each other's names. The short chapters make it accessible and unintimidating for struggling readers.

[lovlee2000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was not what I expected. It was written more in a case of snapshots instead of a continuing storyline. The writing did show some broken English with the main character and that was hard to interpret at time. The subject matter could definitely be discussed at length due to it's in depth nature.

[stubbyfingers_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a series of vignettes, ranging from a half page to a few pages long, told from the point of view of a young Hispanic girl in a poor American community about things that go on there. Some were quite powerful. But mostly I felt that this book was too short for me to really get into. It was over almost before I blinked.

[indygo88 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a nice novella told in a series of short vignettes, giving the reader snapshots in the life of a young Latino preteen growing up in a poorer neighborhood of Chicago. It is an interesting way to tell a story, but it does manage to very well capture the essence of growing & maturing from a young girl's standpoint. I had both the paperback & audio version of this book, and alternated between the two as I read. I preferred the audio in this case, as it was read by the author & therefore read in its intended rhythm.

[taneekabdasilva · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The House on Mango Street delves into the mind of Esperanza who doesn't like her name or the house she lives in. It shows the inner struggles of a young girl and her neighborhood surroundings. Many people around the world desire more and therefore can relate to the main character.

[homeschoolmimzi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book in two days. It's a short book, a sort of quasi-memoir, written in little vignettes which draw you into Cisneros' world. I love books that take me into a neighborhood, a culture where I can be invited in but not feel awkward, b/c of course, I'm not physically there, yet I can feel the mood, listen to the conversations, picture everyone so well. I want to read Cisneros' other books now.

[baachan_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cisneros describe events in the life of Esperanza, a Latina girl growing up in Chicago. Some of the episodes deal with families, other stories handle friendships, school, popularity, fashion, and a host of other issues that touch the lives of adolescent and teenage girls. The narrative is given in vignettes, and while that doesn't give the reader the sensation of completeness, it does allow for a prettier, more artistic presentation of events in the piece. Cisneros may be the author of the story, but readers will forget that she's channeling these characters for us. The language is engaging and believable and consistent--Cisneros never lets her own voice overtake that of her narrator. Recommended for high school and junior high school libraries, but also for public library teen collections, if it isn't already a part of the collection.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes less is more. In a series of short sketches, Sandra Cisneros paints a richly detailed account of a year in the life of a young girl. Esperanza and her family dream of a house of their own, but the house they move into on Mango Street isn't the house of Esperanza's dreams. One by one, Esperanza tells us a little bit about her friends, acquaintances, and experiences in Mango Street. Her observations are brief, and yet they capture the essence of life in this community -- its hopes, joys, fears, and disappointments. Esperanza would like nothing better than to leave Mango Street for a better place, but she learns that Mango Street will always be a part of her, and she of it. Read it once, and you'll want to come back to it again and again.

[jasper5sims · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A young hispanic girl finds herself stuck in revolving circle of Mango St. Vignette after vignette, Cisneros depicts the life of this young girl that reflects Cisneros' own life as a child.

[goldiebear · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have been meaning to read this for a long time. Usually short stories don't do much for me, especially when they don't seem to connect of have any kind of fluency. This was so not the case in this book. I loved the way these short tid-bits of stories flowed together and made it almost dream like. Everything was deliberate in this book, and I liked it. I found this book almost had some touches of Magical Realism (of which I am a huge fan) but yet somehow was able to stay grounded to reality, which I also find important. This was just beautiful.

[aprilcm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a story told with such descriptive language. A teenage girl, Esperanza, recounts her experiences and encounters while living in a home that she does not feel she belongs in. The chapters are very short and each chapter is a small recollection of a person or event that impacts Esperanza's life. My favorite aspect of this book is the imagery; I easily envisioned smells, colors, and people. I felt Esperzanza's pain and fear in certain portions of the book. Cisneros has created a poetic reveal in the eyes of a child.

[flydodofly · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A collection of snippets, as author calls it herself: "...just a jar of buttons..." Situations one has while growing up. The atmosphere feels threatening somehow, I expect bad things to happen, especially when men are around.The introduction in this edition is written by the author herself, some 20 years later, and is very important. It is essential, moving and positive, confirming what Virginia Woolf wrote in Room of One's Own: a safe and independent personal space in affirming surrounding is important for the ability to write and to live and everyone should have one. It is a relief to see that women are finally also able to organize their lives in that way, everywhere in the world. This is the only way forward.

[n2funstuff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent story about growing up Latin in the US.

[imjustmea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovely, simple stories. Their value lies in what isn't said about the poverty and grimness of Esperanza's surroundings.

[nancynova · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Just didn't connect with this one. I forget why I even had it in my collection. Stopped 1/2 way through the book

[cebellol · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

There really wasn't a lot to this book. I mean... there wasn't much of a story line, it was more so a collection of painfully short stories about the residents of one area. I can see why a lot of people have to read this for school though. It is filled with the kind of imagery that English teachers/professors LOVE to tear apart and over analize. In all honesty, I think that's all this book is really good for because if you don't dig into it and over analize it like that, there's really nothing there. Without tearing it apart in a class, there's nothing but words strung together; there's no real substance to it.