I have a heard a lot of talk about Sandra Cisneros and now that I finally experienced her work for myself I find that I have mixed feelings about her. I definitely enjoy her uniqueness and I have genuinely enjoyed reading several of her stories. Cisneros has a particular talent for evoking strong emotions from the reader. “My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn” was such a lovely, sweet, innocent story. I felt sincerely nostalgic for my youth as a simple, appreciative, little girl, even though I share none of these experiences with the little girls. Only the memory of childlike wonderment and awe for the simple pleasures is shared among us. “Eleven,” however, evoked exactly the opposite emotions in me, as I struggled not to cry while reading. I still can’t quite figure out why the words of Cisneros were able to touch me so deeply while none of the other texts have been able to affect me in such a way. There’s something about her exceptionally convincing ability to narrate from a child’s perspective that causes the reader to actually feel as though this heartbreaking story is being told by the bullied young birthday girl. And what adds to her sophistication as a writer is that Cisneros can do such a wonderful job of conveying that she is writing from the perspective of a young child without ever needing to directly inform the reader of the speaker’s age. Thus I was quite fond of the first few short stories.

As I read further into the text, however, I found that I began to notice a high frequency of incidents inserted purely for shock value. These did not so much detract from the literary merit of the text as they did from my personal enjoyment of it. As I read further and further into the book, I also found the stories became more and more difficult for me to comprehend. I’m still not sure as to whether I gained a proper understanding of what was going on in “Remember the Alamo,” with Cisneros’ erratic insertion of names before every new paragraph and constant repetition of “Say you want me…” (Cisneros, 67). Neither do I quite understand the significance of the narrator sleeping with her former lover’s son in “Never Marry a Mexican” other than the obvious shock value provided. I feel as though I could read some of these passages several times and still not fully understand exactly what Cisneros was trying to convey. Nevertheless she is an incredibly gifted writer and her writing has been a fresh breath of air. I definitely respect her. I’m just not so sure whether I truly enjoy reading her work as much as I do the work of Julia Alvarez, for example. We shall see how I feel after reading the second half of the book………..