Critics praise Sandra Cisneros' fiction for, among other things, her use of non-linear form and her colorful, image-rich language. Both are seen as evidence of her departure from traditional (patriarchal, white European-American) conventions of fiction in English in favor of a feminist, specifically Latina mode of discourse. I would argue that Cisneros uses both, as well, to accomplish her many-layered and exceptionally economical characterizations.
Cisneros' characters "come to life" often in remarkably few words, allowing the reader to feel both a sympathy with and a sense of individuality in almost every character that give even short sketches unusual depth and clarity. One way she achieves this dimensionality is by having her characters (often first-person narrators) think or speak (or, occasionally, write) in a way that reveals the shapes of their thought processes. The result is a sort of stream-of-consciousness discourse that can range from barely-conscious, extremely private "thoughts" or feelings through relatively public statements, as in the notes to the Virgin in "Little Miracles, Kept Promises." And one of the characteristics of such discourse is that even when it sets out to tell a linear narrative, other thoughts and feelings intervene to reshape the straight line into loops and disjunctive digressions. Because this is how most people seem to think unless they are deliberately using linear logic, we are invited to find the character's thought processes familiar and to identify with them.
