The House on Mango Street is a realistic fiction novel that sets the plot through a bunch of small memories characters have. The main character, Esperanza, feels alone and like she doesn't belong to the new house she moves to on Mango Street. She becomes friends with her neighbors, Rachel and her little sister, and kids at her school. The book explains growing up, shown through someone's own life, and all the things that come with maturity and responsibility. Though Esperanza talks about growing up all the time with her friends, the time she gets the opportunity to show responsibility, she seems to always fail. Esperanza talks about important events of her life and also her friends’ lives that lead up to the end of the book: her realization of her love of Mango Street.
I personally loved how the book came together, especially since I thought the short memory chapters were a weird way to layout a book. The amount of descriptive words amazed me because I can imagine each and every scene in my head. I really recommend this book to teenagers, especially those who love descriptive and creative writing. The cover of the book was straight forward and showed the house Esperanza lives in, but what I liked was how you only knew what the cover meant after reading the book. I always love covers which hold some mystery, but once you read the book, it's like some key to figuring out what the cover means. Overall, I give this book a 4 out of 5 rating because it had creative elements, but sometimes it was hard to follow, which she intended to do.