The House On Mango Street

Author : Sandra Cisneros

Publisher : Vintage Books

Pages: 110

Rating: 4/5

The house on the mango street is more or less a memoir. A childhood memoir to be exact.  Sandra Cisneros shows us how so much beauty can be encapsulated in such few simple words. The 110 paged book consisting 106 chapters (little, fine, unique chaps) which describes humorously touching and unforgettable memories from the writer’s life including witty introductions of several characters(mostly, the author’s childhood friends, relations et all).

From-“The House On THE Mango Street”(which is the first chapter) to “Mango says Good Bye sometimes” all through the 106, all worldly subjects makes a flamboyant flash in front of the reader’s eyes- family, hair, boys, girls, of growing up, laughter, cats. . . . . . Like Cisneros’s childhood had embodied in to a 110 paged bind. The author had set aside a whole chapter for ‘her name sake’ entitled “My Name”(10) in which she makes lament full(yet humorous) remarks of having a different , “difficult” name –Esperanza- which her school mates observed to be too difficult, sharp and ‘funny’- “as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth” . ‘The House on the Mango Street’ is a masterpiece written by a great woman for the women, as she writes the dedication:

“A las Mujeres”

“To the women”

The work speaks to the women actually and female reader may enjoy it better, but that doesn’t mean that it is confined to that audience alone. Everyone can enjoy it. The most astonishing fact that strikes the reader is that Sandra Cisneros, with her impeccable writing style, managed to explain so much within 110 pages and 106 ‘tiny’ little chapters, so much . . . . .  or almost everything about her childhood. Well, like, the women can read it as ‘their book’ and the rest can savor it as a perfect little literary masterpiece. I found it exceptional, that the glamorous writing style compensates the unfamiliarity and vex a male reader may find in an entirely ‘womanly’ world of words in those 110 pages

Review of : The witch of portobello

Author: Paulo Coelha 

Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher

No of pages:  320

ISBN:  9780061338809

Rating: 5/5 

Totally different from the usual Paulo Coelho styles The witch of portobello recounts Adena’s  life as seen from her different acquaintances , relations and friends. Adhena is a child adopted from Romania blessed with the spiritual light from birth. In the process of her growth, her parents are induced to the fact of the specialties of her character apart from the usual children of her age. Before long they loose her from the usual life to her own spiritual search in which she quits collage and gets married at a very early age  and gives birth to a male child whom she names ‘Viorel’ which is a Romanian name relating to her roots in the Romanian gypsy colonies. As she advances in her spiritual journey she receives both friends,followers as well as foes from many sides. The suspense relies in Adena’s death which marks an abrupt end to the rage from religious fanatics against her  “witchcraft”(They call her the ‘witch of portobello’).Framing her own ‘fake’ death she disappears to a silent existence with the help of her boyfriend in Scotland yard.

This paulo Coelho tale is ‘not meant for the usual reader’ I would say, considering its uniqueness in construction and depth.