THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET is told through a series of vignettes by Esperanza, a young Chicana girl in a poor neighborhood in Chicago. The stories cover much of her childhood and introduce us to the lives, loves, and pain of her friends and neighbors.

I always struggle with how to review classics, because what else is left to say, and particularly for this one, what is there for a white lady like me to say?

I can say that I’m so glad I finally got around to reading THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, and feel a bit cheated that I missed it in my school curriculum.

Esperanza’s stories so beautifully tell us what seem like mundane stories of daily life, but slowly, systemic racism and sexism move from something in the background to something seemingly inescapable. Though, isn’t that still the mundane everyday?