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31st out of 323 books
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308 voters
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Precious
by
Sapphire
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
Includes a Reading Group Guide
Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teache...more
Includes a Reading Group Guide
Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teache...more
Paperback, 139 pages
Published
October 20th 2009
by Vintage
(first published January 1st 1996)
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5 stars for creating a really unique heroine
5 stars for an enjoyable, engrossing story
7 stars for beautiful use of language (yeah mutherfuckers, sometimes that word is the only word that fits)
I didn't put much faith in an author named 'Sapphire'. More urban fiction: ghetto girl's acrylics scratch eyes out of baby father's new crack-addicted girlfriend, I thought. (Not that I don't quite enjoy urban fiction, Zane is quite good and very spicy). I couldn't have been more wro...more
5 stars for an enjoyable, engrossing story
7 stars for beautiful use of language (yeah mutherfuckers, sometimes that word is the only word that fits)
I didn't put much faith in an author named 'Sapphire'. More urban fiction: ghetto girl's acrylics scratch eyes out of baby father's new crack-addicted girlfriend, I thought. (Not that I don't quite enjoy urban fiction, Zane is quite good and very spicy). I couldn't have been more wro...more
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I HATED this book. Don't get me wrong, I understand that horrendous things happen to people on a daily basis and that there are triumphant stories of those who have risen from the wreckage and are now living as icons of survival.
But this book is not like that, really. This book is more like "Listen, Precious has been raped and now I want to rape you too." And after you read the book, you need therapy and you feel like Precious is not really okay like the book tried to say s...more
But this book is not like that, really. This book is more like "Listen, Precious has been raped and now I want to rape you too." And after you read the book, you need therapy and you feel like Precious is not really okay like the book tried to say s...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I encountered this when it was excerpted in the New Yorker around the time of its 1997 publication, when I was a senior in high school. Reading the New Yorker piece effectively shattered my skull, bludgeoning my brain into a tenderized and confused lump of quaking grey gristle.
Push is written in the voice of an impoverished, illiterate, uncared for, despised, abused, obese, neglected, friendless, and seriously fucked teenage black girl living in 1980s Harlem -- ground zero, at that t...more
Push is written in the voice of an impoverished, illiterate, uncared for, despised, abused, obese, neglected, friendless, and seriously fucked teenage black girl living in 1980s Harlem -- ground zero, at that t...more
There is a debate (or at least an ongoing conversation) among teachers who help college students hone their reading skills. What exactly, do you have the students read? The great works of literature, such as Homer, Emerson (yes, Vicky, I am thinking about our conversation the other night)? Do you have them read more modern works? How do you teach reading when you also have to teach reference? The best example of this is when my students were reading an essay about wetlands and thought the wo...more
This is an important novel, though it lacks many of the pretensions that would convince us so.
Push, now known as the book that inspired last year's much-renowned hit film Precious, is the first-person account of the teenage life of Claireece Precious Jones, a Harlem teenager who as of writing this account has given birth to two children, a boy and a girl, both products of her rape at the hands of her biological father. In terms of Push's social narrative, it only goes downhill from ...more
Push, now known as the book that inspired last year's much-renowned hit film Precious, is the first-person account of the teenage life of Claireece Precious Jones, a Harlem teenager who as of writing this account has given birth to two children, a boy and a girl, both products of her rape at the hands of her biological father. In terms of Push's social narrative, it only goes downhill from ...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I was going to write up a Celebrity Death Match between Sapphire and Dave Pelzer for the title of Most Abused Child Ever, but on second thoughts, silence is golden.
One last thing. I remember reading Push and watching The Wire during the same week had a strange effect on me which for a white English male was not a good thing. A work colleague asked me if Push was any good and I barked at him bitch be messin my mind and shit .
One last thing. I remember reading Push and watching The Wire during the same week had a strange effect on me which for a white English male was not a good thing. A work colleague asked me if Push was any good and I barked at him bitch be messin my mind and shit .
3 and 1/2 stars
Disturbing, but worth it. I read more than half of it before going to sleep the other night and had bad dreams. Maybe I distanced myself from it emotionally when I picked it up again, but it didn't hold the same power over me when I read the rest. Perhaps that's the danger in a overwhelming topic such as this; our minds push away something so difficult -- our own form of survival, so just imagine what the people who endure the things Precious did have to do to surviv...more
Disturbing, but worth it. I read more than half of it before going to sleep the other night and had bad dreams. Maybe I distanced myself from it emotionally when I picked it up again, but it didn't hold the same power over me when I read the rest. Perhaps that's the danger in a overwhelming topic such as this; our minds push away something so difficult -- our own form of survival, so just imagine what the people who endure the things Precious did have to do to surviv...more
Several years ago, when I was still in high school and believed that although the world wasn't wholly good, it wasn't too bad either, I came across a news item of an eight-year old girl in a Middle East country, who was repeatedly raped by her father, and thus made pregnant as well. The news horrified and numbed me. Reading Push was, in a way, a huge reminder to me of that one incident, the one that probably stripped off the fancy glasses from my irises.
I think...
When I read ho...more
I think...
When I read ho...more
Precious Jones is an angry, obese and illiterate sixteen year old girl who has suffered horrific abuse at the hands of both her parents. Now pregnant with her second child (by her father) Precious is an invisible statistic within both the education and social service systems, just one more of Harlem’s casualties and a number that her school would rather advance and graduate than help. With the meeting of an extraordinary teacher Precious is finally ‘seen’ and starts to receive the help and enco...more
The protagonist of "Push," Precious Jones, is heartbreakenly resilient, intellectually curious, and vulnerable. Throughout this book, she yearns, always yearns, for a better life and pushes forward through the limitations of her past while struggling to learn more about herself and the world. Some of the lessons are painful--acknowledging her status as a rape/incest survivor, learning she has an STI, discovering, more than she had even known at the beginning of the book, the failures...more
I really like this book. It was about this girl who gets raped by her dad,her mom does not belive her. She gets abused. i would recomend this book to kids and adults. But in my opion this book is most likly for adults because it has adulat language.
This is one of those books that's so real (hell, I taught a kid like this at an alternative school in Chicago) it'll never get into a high school curriculum. It's that good, that authentic, that "dangerous". I avoid the hype around vogue books and authors, but this one delivered the goods.
The language is definitely vulgar, violent and hyper-sexual, but the voice...my goodness! I'd never compare a book to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", but it is ironic that Sapphire m...more
The language is definitely vulgar, violent and hyper-sexual, but the voice...my goodness! I'd never compare a book to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", but it is ironic that Sapphire m...more
Knowing that the movie "Precious" was about to come out, I decided to read the book first.
This powerful, short novel packs a punch. Precious Jones starts out life being raped by both of her parents, never knowing that her life had any value. At the age of 16, pregnant with her father's second baby, she gets kicked out of traditional school (junior high school) and enrolls in an alternative school, where she learns to read...from scratch.
As Precious learns to re...more
This powerful, short novel packs a punch. Precious Jones starts out life being raped by both of her parents, never knowing that her life had any value. At the age of 16, pregnant with her father's second baby, she gets kicked out of traditional school (junior high school) and enrolls in an alternative school, where she learns to read...from scratch.
As Precious learns to re...more
I wish I could tell myself that this book is outlandishly over-exaggerated, but I know that it's not. I live in the St Louis, Missouri area and the city's public schools have imploded, lost their accreditation, and have been taken over by the state. There are kids that graduate barely able to read, for real. And it's not just kids in the city being left behind, either - children of meth addicts in rural Missouri are coming of age now soon, and are just as desperately underserved. Too many childr...more
Precious wasn't just any kind of book. The book generates the issue of what young teens are facing in their everyday lives. Teens feels like they can't explain their situation unless you've been in a situation also. Precious overcame so much. She was abused;
physically,emotionally, and mentally. Her dad who sexually abused her from the age of three, was a man who wasn't in his right state of mind.
I believed that Precious needed a breakthrough. Who and what helped Precious was...more
physically,emotionally, and mentally. Her dad who sexually abused her from the age of three, was a man who wasn't in his right state of mind.
I believed that Precious needed a breakthrough. Who and what helped Precious was...more
This is a hard book to tackle due to its subject matter (incest, abuse, disease, poverty and more), but I was prepared for that and I found it to be sad but not heavy, if that makes sense. And I love that the writing style immerses you in the character's head completely and without apology, making it a unique read, which is hard to find these days. My disappointment comes in the ending because we, the readers, aren't taken to our destination but rather dropped off on the road towards it. I wante...more
“Pain hit me again, then she hit me. I’m on the floor groaning. Mommy please! Mommy please!” This is only one of the many cries that are shrieked by (Claireece) Precious Jones, a 16-year-old girl, who is pregnant for the second time. No, she didn’t get pregnant by her boyfriend, best friend, or even a random stranger, but by her own father. And this is only the beginning of her problems. This powerful novel written by Sapphire is not only touching but also so breathtaking that I had to stop in ...more
This book is really sad. When i read it, it really touched me about how there are some girls out there in the world that have to go through living in a bad enviorment their whole life. Like their mothers beating them, getting raped by their own fathers or step-fathers. Sapphire was really brave when she was younger. And she tried her best to do well.
I also loved how she ended the book. Or really how her life ended up. The book made me realise i should enjoy my life well, and not be s...more
I also loved how she ended the book. Or really how her life ended up. The book made me realise i should enjoy my life well, and not be s...more
I love this book. I hate this book.
I'm a binge reader -- I can swallow whole a 900 page novel from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. It took me 3 weeks to read this huge short book. I had to put it down when I felt how little Precious thought of herself. I had to put it down when her mother admits her role in her child's abuse. I had to put it down so I could think of ways to kill this fictional pitiful girl's fictional stepfather. He is, as the Sweet Potato Queens would call him...more
I'm a binge reader -- I can swallow whole a 900 page novel from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. It took me 3 weeks to read this huge short book. I had to put it down when I felt how little Precious thought of herself. I had to put it down when her mother admits her role in her child's abuse. I had to put it down so I could think of ways to kill this fictional pitiful girl's fictional stepfather. He is, as the Sweet Potato Queens would call him...more
Poignant, gut-wrenching, and unapologetically raw. Young Precious' ability to keep fighting against such dire odds amazed and inspired me. This is a story I will never forget, and I truly look forward to the film adaptation.
I honestly doubt I would have picked this novel up had it not been recommended to me or (as was the case) required as part of a class. While I enjoy "coming of age" stories and stories of overcoming hardship, the overarching themes and situations in this book are off-putting to say the least.
The professor made it very clear that the first chapter (~40 pages) was going to be very difficult to read for a number of reasons. Some students were put off by the spelling which wa...more
The professor made it very clear that the first chapter (~40 pages) was going to be very difficult to read for a number of reasons. Some students were put off by the spelling which wa...more
I thought this book was amazing and sad at the same time. This book is about a girl named Precious that was abused at a young age. Precious in the beginning of the book is twelve, she is pregnant with her first son. Precious's dad raped her many times. In the middle of the book Precious is sixteen with her second baby. Other than Precious being raped she is also abused by her mother.
I can make a text to world connection to this book. Lots of kids suffer from child abuse from their parent...more
I can make a text to world connection to this book. Lots of kids suffer from child abuse from their parent...more
The book ‘Push’ by Sapphire is about a sixteen-year-old illiterate girl living in Harlem. Precious (the main character) suffers from sexual, physical and mental abuse. Her father has raped her since she was young and she has already had 2 children by him, in which he abandons. Precious’ only way to a new life is by joining a secondary school, where she meets a highly radical and inspirational teacher who grows to love her like a child when her real mom doesn’t. The book follows Precious’ journey...more
Lizzie
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who don't mind disturbing scenes and language
Shelves:
fiction,
read-in-2010
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This book is fiction, right? I wasn't too sure, having heard of the movie and having seen the preview first, I had naturally assumed it was a biography of an abused child, like we have seen many of before.
Then I picked up the book, breezed through it as it is remarkably short, and then scoured the cover for a stamp that says 'fiction'. Normally I don't read a book this drastic and dark that isn't non fiction. It reminds me lightly of When Rabbit Howls (the troops for Trudi Chase). I picke...more
Then I picked up the book, breezed through it as it is remarkably short, and then scoured the cover for a stamp that says 'fiction'. Normally I don't read a book this drastic and dark that isn't non fiction. It reminds me lightly of When Rabbit Howls (the troops for Trudi Chase). I picke...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Verbose as I am, I CAN NOT find words to describe this book. Amazing seems trite but the author wrote a beautiful, extraordinary story. I read about half the book before realizing Precious is fiction. The slim little novel appeared to be a journal and reflection on a three year period of someone’s life. Sapphire uses spelling and grammatical patterns to demonstrate Precious’ world. As Precious’ world expands, so too does the novel’s vocabulary. Brilliant work of art! A poetic novel!
...more
...more
Ashley Pearson
rated it
Recommends it for:
I recommend this to those who do not have a week stomach and can handle really heavy stuff.
Precious/Push was a fast read, but by no means would I classify it as an "easy" read. The story follows the young life of Precious, who is 15 when the book begins and has been kicked out of school because she is pregnant for the second time by her father. Precious recounts in her own words the physical, emotional and sexual abuse she has endured at the hands of her mother and her father, and the school system's dismissal of her as a waste of time that cannot learn. A math teacher, h...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| should this book be banned? why or why not?!!!! (NEED FOR ENGLISH CLASS) | 22 | 168 | Feb 10, 2012 10:42am | |
| Akins Hollis Engl...: SSR | 1 | 1 | Dec 02, 2011 11:54am | |
| this book | 3 | 19 | Nov 29, 2011 07:00am | |
| Akins Hollis Engl...: PUSH | 1 | 1 | Oct 28, 2011 12:10pm | |
| Akins Hollis Engl...: SSR | 1 | 1 | Oct 07, 2011 12:00pm | |
| Akins Hollis Engl...: jasmine williams | 1 | 1 | Sep 30, 2011 12:09pm | |
| Akins Hollis Engl...: SSR | 1 | 1 | Sep 30, 2011 07:57am |
Ramona Lofton was born in Fort Ord, California, one of four children of an Army couple who relocated within the United States and abroad. After a disagreement concerning where the family would settle, her parents separated, with Lofton's mother "kind of abandoning them". Lofton dropped out of high school, fleeing her abusive father, and moved to San Francisco, where she attained a GED an...more
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17 trivia questions
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“Mother to Son
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a'climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
- Langston Hughes (112)”
—
26 people liked it
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a'climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
- Langston Hughes (112)”
“Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." - The Talmud”
—
10 people liked it
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