Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are.”

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

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I’m really late to the party on this classic. I read the 25th anniversary edition, which included a beautiful forward by the author in which she explains who she was while she was writing this book. A young woman, on the cusp of being a true adult- a woman who wanted badly to please her father and also to satisfy her writer’s heart. She was learning how to express herself, and out came this series of vignettes about life growing up in Chicago. The people […]

A House in Pieces

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

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While a classic, I’ve never gotten around to reading The House on Mango Street, but my mentor wants to add it to our class reading list and has asked me to teach it. I blew through it in about six hours, and I don’t know why I’ve avoided this book for such a long time. Like many classics, I’d heard the title bandied about in conversation, but never any details about the plot, and my idea of what this books was about (a house in a […]

Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor

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Another book from my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before She Turns 40 was The House on Mango Street (1984) by Sandra Cisneros. I did not realize this until I had actually finished Mango Street, but I’d already read Caramelo by Cisneros years ago and enjoyed it. I like repeating authors when I appreciate their writing, and I was again impressed by Cisneros’s writing and perspective with this book. However, I was always looking for more detail, and I often felt left behind and looking for more. The House […]

“I’ve got the bad blood in me I think, the mad uncle, the bit of the bullet.”

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Seinfeld used to do a bit I really liked about going to the movies. Movie previews used to say, “If you see only one movie this year, make this one it!” He hated that, because if you’re only going to see one movie, don’t bother. It’s too much pressure. I’m feel that way about books.  That’s part of why I read so much – it’s ok to be adventurous and move outside my comfort zone because what’s the worst that can happen? I only liked […]

The snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair that smells like bread.

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I feel incredibly robbed not to have found this book when I was mid-adolescence, when I would have reveled in empathy with Esperanza, the beautiful, awkward, sad, scared, bold, shy, lonely, social narrator who is coming-of-age through the course of the year during which The House on Mango Street takes place. Cisneros writes this book as an extended series of short vignettes: portraits of people, places, and things in Esperanza’s life; all the things that make up the tapestry of her youth. With these vignettes, […]

And you’re stuck to this corner like a streetlight…

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 Esperanza Cordero lives on Mango street in a house that is not her house. The real house is out there waiting for her and it has beautiful windows and white polished bannisters. But for now Esperanza lives in this house, on Mango Street. I’m not sure what to say about this book. It does not lend itself to direct proclamations. Oh this is a tale of coming of age! Oh this is how [insert riveting plotpoint where the main character battles dragons]! Rather the main […]



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