Ficiton Subgenre: The Signette: House on Mango Street

In my original reading plan, I decided to read House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. It is a collection of....well, I'm not sure how you'd classify it (I'll get to that)...but together they all tell a story of a young girl living in Chicago, the people she meets there, her wish to escape, and her promise to come back for those she loves. I couldn't decide how to classify this book - definitely fiction, but what kind of fiction. It's almost poetic in its language at times, but it's not quite a collection of short stories either. I did some digging, and here's what I found:

vi·gnette  (vn-yt)

n.

1. A decorative design placed at the beginning or end of a book or chapter of a book or along the border of a page.

2. An unbordered picture, often a portrait, that shades off into the surrounding color at the edges.

3.

a. A short, usually descriptive literary sketch.

b. A short scene or incident, as from a movie.

tr.v. vi·gnet·ted, vi·gnet·ting, vi·gnettes

1. To soften the edges of (a picture) in vignette style.

2. To describe in a brief way.

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[French, from Old French, diminutive of vigne, vine (from the use of vine tendrils in decorative borders); seevine.]

This seems to be the perfect definition to me. It's a collection of vignettes. None alone are long or complete enough to be a short story, but it's a collection of snippets that ultimately tell a tale. Exploring more into this genre. When looking up common examples, this came up: a blog. So while I thought we were all writing informally this term, we've actually been practicing our vignettes. :)