the house on mango street

This teeny little book has so much to say about Mexican-American girls growing up in a state of in-between. Esperanza has to be one of the most endearing of all YA fiction characters, yet she isn’t quite fictional; Cisneros has mentioned repeatedly that her inspiration for the book is the lack of stories resembling her own life, the lack of houses that look like her own home. The concept of a house is what propels the story and serves as the common thread through the vignettes, but it also functions poetically, providing the book with its most beautiful and heartbreaking imagery and lyricism. Mango Street definitely stays with the reader, and this is a book I’ll read again and again.