The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Only a house as white as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.
Bookshelves: coming-of-age, five-stars-means-ill-read-it-again, literary-fiction, literature-with-a-capital-l, memoir, racism, this-is-the-stuff-right-here, women, latino-culture, patriarchy, defying-gender-roles
I read this for Banned Books Week, and wow, what a read. It’s not a novel so much as a series of vignettes that jump around in time, each a different window into the author’s life as a Chicana girl growing up in Chicago.
Cisneros’ language is lyrical and evocative and deceptively simple. She is an artist who paints a lush portrait with only a few strokes of the brush. Beautiful.
I am trying to think why this book might have been challenged. There is no graphic sex, no overt violence, no offensive language, no drugs or LGBT or non-mainstream religion. The only thing I can see is that it challenges societal patriarchy and is written by a Latina author. *peeks online* Yep, the Hispanic angle was what it was. In Arizona, where they have some weird-ass politics. Seriously, what a bunch of bigots.
I loathe bigotry. I love this book. I will probably buy a copy (no small thing, with my limited space) so I can read it whenever I want to.
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