Reading Response: A Mango-Shaped Space

A Mango- Shaped Space was a book I read, before summer but read it again in the summer. This was a great book! The genera of this book are realistic fiction. It is about, a girl named Mia that sees words in different types of colors with also shapes, which is called synesthesia, that no one else could see accept her. She has her companion that she loves very much, her cat Mango that was sick and later on dies which doesn't suit Mia but accepts the truth and moves on in her life. Her siblings were half weird, because her sister, Beth dyes her hair a different color each week and her brother, Zack counts every burger he eats. But when it comes to her colors and shapes her parent thinks that that's not what a normal person would see and got worried and took her to the doctor, and between in these stuff Mia finds herself a pen pal on email where they used to reply to each other every day until they met each other and kissed which Mia's mom saw. After that incident, Mia spent most of her time with Mango. One day her friend found out about her problems with her color seeing word ability, her friend got mad for not telling her and later on the whole school knew about it and started calling her freak, Mia still didn't mind. She and her friend patched up again. But when Mango passed away, she lost her special colors she used to see in every word, which made Mia feel she wasn't special anymore, but in the end, she got her special ability back. Moreover, even if Mango isn't with Mia, the memories are still with her.

This is a book that I had to read in the summer again since it is one of my favorite books on my book shelf, and the main reason is whenever I read this book, it gets me interested of how must Mia have felt going through all these problem at the same time. Also I get to relate with the main character Mia some times. One way I can relate to her is by having the same problems, like her parents weren't confident she could get an A on her test, my parents also didn't have confidence in me before also. Another way I can relate to Mia is by having the same feelings when losing our pets, her cat died, and my gold fish. By having ways to relate to Mia, gets me interested in the book more, because I can connect with the main character's feeling. Having ways to relate with Mia wasn't the only reason why enjoyed this book, another reason is because the author described Mia's feelings with full of details. That was another reason why I enjoyed this book because, when I was reading this book, the details made me go in Mia’s place and made me realize, if I had synesthesia my life would’ve been complicated like Mia’s life. These are the reason why A Mango-Shaped Space is a book that is my favorite and also a book, I enjoyed to read again!

The theme of this book is that even though you are different than others in something doesn’t mean you are not a normal person. This is the theme of the book because; when Mia’s parents and her classmates found out she has synesthesia, they all thought she wasn’t a normal person and something is really messed up with her, when it is just an actual ability, that didn’t leave much harm in her life. The author was really trying to make the theme stand out in the book. One way I can tell by, is the author giving a lot of details, of how people felt about her after they found out. First in the beginning of the book, when her mom didn’t know about Mia having synesthesia, her mom thought she had brain tumor and started getting worried and started giving her more care then she used to, when instead of trying to understand how she is feeling by how her mom is making her feel more insecure about herself. Another way the author tried to stand out the theme was by getting the whole school knowing about her ability, and letting classmates calling her a freak, which means people, think she isn’t a regular person. The author makes the theme stand in many ways, which I think to show the reader’s how important this theme can be.