I loved The House on Mango Street, so I was looking forward to reading this collection of short stories by Cisneros, who has an amazing talent for imagery. It helps to be familiar with Latino culture when reading Cisneros, who is of Mexican decent, because she peppers her stories with references to the Latino way of life.One of the stories in this collection, "Eyes of Zapata", is an account of Emiliano Zapata's life as told through one of his lovers. I'm not very familiar with that part of Mexican history, so I didn't get as much out of it as I could have.
My favorite story was called "Eleven" in which the author writes:
"What they don't understand about birthdays & what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, & nine, & eight, & seven, & six, & five, & four, & three, & two, & one ... Like some days you might say something stupid, & that's the part of you that's still ten ... That's what I tell Mama when she's sad & needs to cry. Maybe she's feeling three."
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