The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.

Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous – it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

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I rather enjoyed this short little book. It has an interesting structure, which takes some getting use to. Cisneros chose to forego many of the traditional literary structures, such as indenting dialogue, which at first made the prose hard to follow. Once I got used to it, I kind of liked it. It made the stories read more like a stream of consciousness. 

It is a very short read, with each vignette amounting to a few pages each. There is no real story line, but rather each vignette serves as a snapshot of a moment in the life of Esperanza, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago. Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, some read like poetry, some deal with heavy subject matter, others are more lighthearted. There are some things that are probably unique to the Mexican experience, but there are also a lot of universal threads dealing with identify, family, expectations, insecurity, gender, etc. 

I feel like this is a book that requires multiple readings to fully comprehend and unpack. It's simplicity is duplicitous, and I think there is a lot more going on in this novel than what first meets the eye. After only one reading I can appreciate why it often makes classic literature lists, and hope to re-read it again in the near future.     

2015 Reading Challenge: A book that came out the year you were born

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that "every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section".

His family is another inspiration. "You Can't Kill the Rooster" is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.

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This is my second David Sedaris' book, and I have to say that I am becoming quite the fan. I find David's writing to be quite humorous, and his use of irony fantastic. I also have a very sarcastic sense of humor and I often felt that David said exactly what I would have been thinking had I found myself in the same situation. He paints very lively caricatures (or maybe portraits is a better word??) of himself, his friends, and his family. Many of the stories in this book are laugh-out-loud funny, and I think it is easy to dismiss them as just another funny story, but often there was a deeper meaning. 

Through humor, David explores the issues of acceptance, identify, love, relationships, etc. I think humor is often used to make less savory things more palpable or easy to digest. Stripped of their humor, some of these stories are truly heartbreaking, and I think it's the humor that allows us as the reader (and maybe David as the writer) to explore and share these experiences. An overall good read.


2015 Reading Challenge: A book of short stories