Originally published in 1985, and republished to coincide with the release of Cisneros' new book, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, this is the stunning debut noveld in a series of vignettes, it is the story of a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago.
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Originally published in 1985, and republished to coincide with the release of Cisneros' new book, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, this is the stunning debut noveld in a series of vignettes, it is the story of a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago.
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I bought the books my kids will read this year. This was one of them.
It is and easy read but it gives a tweens view of growing up in South Chicago. I liked it. It has a different style as they put it "vignettes".
rgwager
Sep 4, 2010
Pleased
Prompt and dependable. Arrived in plenny of time for my daughter to use book at school. Pricing was comfortable.
turnwrite
Jun 3, 2008
Pathetic
Why this book is so lauded is beyond me.
It is a great idea, I'll grant it that. A book composed of anecdotes relating the story of a neighborhood and all the unique residents therein. After being told about the book, my imagination ran wild, dreaming up all sorts of eccentric characters and anecdotes, both poignant and humorous, with which the book might be filled.
I then went and actually read the book, which was my mistake. All my idle dreams were crushed by the pathetic writing that made up the vast majority of this book. Shallow and dull, no interesting ideas were explored, and no creativity displayed itself. Failing that, the book could at least have been entertaining. Sadly, this was not the case.
It gets two stars because of one chapter, toward the end, called "The Monkey Garden." This chapter was excellent. It was written beautifully and the characters seemed to come to life and flourish for these scant few pages, before returning to their previous, pallid state just in time for the next chapter. Cisneros seems to taunt us with a brilliant taste of what the whole book might have been, but wasn't.
Not really worth reading at all.
rainbow
Jul 24, 2007
very funny
a slim novella in the form of very funny short chapters, on school, love ,life, boyfriends growing up in tight circumstances and yet still finding the funny side of things
ThreeC
Jun 29, 2007
A Book That I Have Never Read Before
I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh, cry, and renvent myself. I never really thought this book would make realize so much I have and realize what my mother and family went through. It was like reading my mother and father's story of how they struggled to live a a new country. The places she described were like the ones my mother talks about. They too lived in Chicago, but now they live in El Paso, Texas. Thank you Sandra Cisneros for being back wonderful memories that I had left behind. Thank you for bringing back those stories full of happiness and some of sorrows.
