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Push

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 26,343 ratings · 4,526 reviews

Relentless, remorseless, and inspirational, this "horrific, hope-filled story" (Newsday) is certain to haunt a generation of readers. Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child, meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption.

The movie "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire," direct...more

Paperback, 177 pages

Published April 29th 1997 by Vintage (first published June 11th 1996)

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Mar 21, 2011 Petra X rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

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 wrong. The writing in the b...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Kei rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-despise

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 she is at the end.

Other...more

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Dec 04, 2012 G rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary

PUSH exceeds the limits of my understanding. I am a white male; moderately affluent; educated; healthy; and able to say that my foundation from my past has allowed me to become the person I am today. Precious Jones is none of these things. If anything, she is the antithesis of what I am.

This is not her fault.

Blame birth. Chance. Possibility.

But what I have does not compare to what Precious Jones has. She is a fighter; a survivor of incest; HIV positive; beyond impoverished; and yet, hope burns...more PUSH exceeds the limits of my understanding. I am a white male; moderately affluent; educated; healthy; and able to say that my foundation from my past has allowed me to become the person I am today. Precious Jones is none of these things. If anything, she is the antithesis of what I am.

This is not her fault.

Blame birth. Chance. Possibility.

But what I have does not compare to what Precious Jones has. She is a fighter; a survivor of incest; HIV positive; beyond impoverished; and yet, hope burns eternal within her. No matter how the cards may be stacked against her, she fights.

If anything, Precious Jones and her story illustrate how savagely we precipitate violence upon each other. And this violence is not born of strangers...this violence comes across the breakfast nook or the bedroom or the school yard; from people you thought you could trust.

Admittedly, I will never know what it is like to walk in her shoes. For me to even feel empathy for Precious feels like I am being hypocritical. Me wincing at the passages does not change the event. Me reading this story, as fictionalized as it may be, does not change the fact that somewhere a Precious is experiencing the violence and shame and suffering that no person should ever have to endure. For some person tonight, this story is real.

Sapphire has done her part. She has relayed a tale of woe. And as much as I could be critical about the overwritten parts, the parts that scream look at me, stare, become aghast, I will never forget that this story is entirely plausible.

Perhaps that is my role in this story. Perhaps my only job was to be witness to the vile nature of humanity. I have seen, now. But it doesn't change the fact that I can still close my eyes, kiss my children, get into my SUV and go to the park, make a steak, go on vacation, make love to a woman that loves me back, and forget that people like Precious will never get to do these things.

A heavy read, my friends, a heavy read.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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30 likes · like · see review

Apr 06, 2007 Chris rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: so-bad-its-offensive

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

64 likes · like · see review

Mar 15, 2009 dollmatic rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, heartrending, melancholy, raw

Poignant and unapologetically raw. Precious' ability to keep fighting against such dire odds both amazed and inspired me. This is a story I will never forget, and I truly look forward to the film adaptation.

14 likes · like · see review

Dec 01, 2007 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: pushers, the pushed

Shelves: favorites, kind-of-depressing, here-is-new-york

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 time, of raci...more 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 time, of racialized poverty, the crack epidemic, AIDS, and pretty much every other attendant inner-city nightmare you can think of. The main character's voice is so violently affecting that I lack adequate words to describe what reading this was like for me. For several days afterwards, I thought of it constantly -- I mean constantly, from when I woke up in the morning until I went to bed at night, and nearly every moment in between. Sapphire's writing gave me the uniquely visceral experience of having left my own life and consciousness to inhabit the body and mind of an individual whose experiences -- polar opposite of my own -- strained the limits of imaginable human suffering. I have never read anything else in my entire life that so completely and effectively forced my mind into occupying that of a fictional character, let alone one so completely different from me in every single respect, save gender and nationality. I felt, while reading this, that I lost all critical sense of distance and observation, and actually in a very significant way became the character Precious. And this experience of becoming her was so horrific and terrifying that I likely experienced symptoms of what mental health providers refer to as "vicarious trauma" -- the result of bearing witness to another person's experience of intensely traumatic events.

Okay, okay, so you get it already: this book had a huge impact on me. So why only four stars?

The novel was unable to sustain the intensity of the shorter New Yorker piece, and had several significant flaws. For one thing, Push seemed to me at the time to suffer from what is known as "Jude-the-Obscure Syndrome," i.e., the ceaseless litany of Precious's sufferings started to seem almost ridiculous after awhile: she's not just raped by her dad, she's also raped by her mom; of course Precious gets AIDS -- and so does her baby.... on and on and on. I haven't reread this since it came out -- mostly because I'm scared it wouldn't be so amazing as I remember -- but I'm curious if I'd respond differently to this after working for several years in social services, now that I've seen for myself that in fact -- who knew?! -- some people's lives really are exactly this bad....

The other problem with this book is that it displays several diagnostic criteria for "Social Novel Disorder," which is to say, the power of the narrative is undermined by a sense of the author's (understandable) agenda, and of a rather artificial plot trajectory in which Precious encounters a Sapphire-like (it seemed to me at the time) social worker and thereby begins her healing and empowerment, learning in the process to read and to surrender her misguided and intolerant homophobic views. Of course, I might appreciate this optimistic ending a lot more now than I did at 17, when it struck me as inorganic and corny.

I have to reread this novel, and I will soon. I'm very curious to see whether the writing still exerts the same power and force I remember, and also whether my own aging and experiences in the years since will have changed my response to what seemed like serious flaws on my first read.(less)

32 likes · like · see review

Dec 15, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-american

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 word c...more

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Dec 10, 2009 Pollopicu rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The story is a typical ghetto tragedy of a young uneducated girl who's raped by her father and severely abused (also raped) by her mother. She ends up having two children by her dad, one of which who has Downs Syndrome. She also sadly ends up contacting the HIV virus from him as well.
I feel the author took the easy way out in making the book too shockingly vulgar, which is the only thing I felt held this novel together. The writer definitely tried too hard in that aspect of the story, and I was...more

9 likes · like · see review

Mar 16, 2010 KFed rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

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 there: Preci...more

10 likes · like · see review

Oct 27, 2012 Buggy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: shelf-10, fiction, media-tie-in, horrors

Opening Line: "I was left back when I was twelve because I had a baby for my fahver."

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 extr...more

8 likes · like · see review

Mar 10, 2010 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

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 .

30 likes · like · see review

Jun 30, 2011 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Teresa by: rhea

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 survive. We become i...more

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May 24, 2013 Nenia Campbell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: x-1990s, ya-baby-ya, antihero, disturbing, family-secrets, feels-bruised, icky-things-going-on-here, incest, offensive-stereotypes, rape-n-violence, real-teen-problems, wtf

I have to say that Sapphire really got the tone of this novel right. It was hard to read for many reasons — not only the phonetic spellings (because Precious is supposed to be illiterate), but also because of all the cursing, the graphic descriptions of incestuous rape, the xenophobia and bigotry, and also the HATE. Precious really is a misnomer because the girl in this novel is treated as anything but. All she has ever known is rape and abuse. Her father AND her mother sexually abused her, and...more I have to say that Sapphire really got the tone of this novel right. It was hard to read for many reasons — not only the phonetic spellings (because Precious is supposed to be illiterate), but also because of all the cursing, the graphic descriptions of incestuous rape, the xenophobia and bigotry, and also the HATE. Precious really is a misnomer because the girl in this novel is treated as anything but. All she has ever known is rape and abuse. Her father AND her mother sexually abused her, and she got pregnant from her father twice at sixteen and at twelve. I guess it's only natural that all that hate she didn't feel free to express turned both inward (she hates herself for being ugly, black, and fat), and outward (she condemns crack addicts, homosexuals, and people of other ethnicities, particularly Latinos and white people).

It isn't until she gets accepted into an alternative school that Precious is forced to reevaluate her views. I reallllly didn't like reading about “the white bitch this” and “crackers” that. I find it extremely offensive. My momma didn't raise me to use such language and I'm proud to say that I've never used a single racial slur in my life. I always think it's ironic that other people feel so free to disparage The White Man. It's the same way I think it's ironic how feminists push for gender “equality” while condemning men as chauvinist pigs. You can't cancel out oppression with more oppression, and you can't destroy objectification by more objectification. Hate only breeds more hate, no matter which direction it's from. Treating each person as an individual and not as a mass-produced product from some generic template is the key to equality and true understanding. This moral lesson is the key point of the book, I think.

Her teacher, Blue Rain, really is a pretty inspirational figure. I loved the fact that she was a lesbian and none of her students could even tell! So true. It was also cool to see how Precious's education slowly shaped the way her ideas were expressed. Writing things down on paper definitely makes you think twice about your thoughts and what's important in life; it's why I keep a journal. However, Precious's life continues to suck because she has to escape her abusive mother, find a place to live, take care of her newborn baby, AND deal with the fact that her father gave her the AIDS virus. Does her life suck? Oh, yes. Does she make it suck less? Kind of. She goes from having nobody in her corner to having a huge support network. She starts off the book stealing breakfast and then collects roadside cans to pay someone back some borrowed change. Obviously, she didn't become a Rhodes Scholar but she definitely improved on an intellectual basis, as well as a moral basis. Watching this transformation was cool.

I feel that this book is important because it shows that you can't give up on people, because frequently those are the people who are in most need of help. I also think that it really shows the hypocrisy of oppressed minorities (who frequently tend to be just as bigoted as their so-called oppressors), and how this hypocrisy spurs from resentment and frustration at being overlooked by The System. People like this do exist, sadly. Anyone who thinks we need cuts in funding for social programs should read this book and rethink that opinion.

So yeah, while I'm not in love with this book or the main character, I can definitely dig the message that the author is trying to send. And I loved the collection of stories from Precious's classmates that my edition included at the back. Jermaine's story was the best, I think. I kinda wish that there was another book just focusing on HER.(less)

2 likes · like · see review

May 10, 2010 Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, fiction, f-general

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 how Precious' mother...more

8 likes · like · see review

Jan 22, 2013 Yvette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very disturbing account of a young illiterate african american girl who was abuse through out her life. No one deserves to live through such abuse. This young girl called Precious was able to rise above her issues with the help of her teacher. Each one Teach one.

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 16, 2009 Tanasia rated it 5 of 5 stars

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.

9 likes · like · see review

May 17, 2012 Angela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, read-2011

I picked this up the other day as I was waiting for a library book to come through and didn't want to start anything too big/long. Stupid idea as I read this in one sitting so still had the same dilemma of having nothing to read whilst waiting for the library book.

This is a captivating read. Utterly depressing and melancholic. I loved the style and pace of writing. The entire account is mortifying and horrifying yet quite poetic in the author's prose.

When I first started reading it, I was immed...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2010 Jeremy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

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 mentions Twain's great book...more

13 likes · like · see review

Sep 14, 2010 Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: african-american, fiction, coming-of-age

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 read and write about her life, she d...more

5 likes · like · see review

Dec 07, 2009 Natalia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

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

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Dec 01, 2009 Tulani rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 Ms.Rain from her n...more

3 likes · like · see review

Oct 30, 2009 Sarah Arlen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

9 likes · like · see review

Dec 19, 2009 Micaela Eliot added it

Shelves: advisory-2009-2010

“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 “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 the middle of a chapter and take a break. Narrated by Precious Jones herself in a diary-like style, she tells the horrific events that happen in her life. Each “entry” is filled with the distressed emotions she feels which are sometimes even too graphic to read all at once. But despite all of the tragic events it tells and teaches lot of meaningful messages to the reader. Push is an astonishing novel to read because of how the author captures the character using the writing style, the influential concepts of abuse that are brought up, and how connected you feel as a reader.

The way the author writes has a very distinct style than any other novel you may have read before. This one not only tells you about the struggle of Precious’ academic skills but shows you as well. Precious is supposed to be in 11th grade but is still in junior high and has the reading level of a 1st grader. She is also told that she can’t return back to school since she is pregnant. Sapphire shows this by incorporating the spelling of the text. Instead of Precious saying “Mother…” it’s written as “Muver…” along with many other grammatical errors throughout the book. Because of its different way of writing you grasp the struggles she goes through more than if you were to just type in a usual form and infer what she struggle with.

Abuse, both physical and mental is a powerful theme brought up in the book. Precious never gets a break and is always harassed by her mom whenever she’s home. She’s gotten kicked, punched, and even objects have been thrown at her! Scared and nervous, Precious stays in her room as long as she can to avoid as much confrontation with her mother as possible. Her father also raped her two times, both of those times she got pregnant by him and her mother just stood by. She had no one to go to for support and comfort. Despite all that her mother and father have done to her she still had the desire to want to go to school, take care of her children, and live her own life! She goes to an alternative school to try to get her G.E.D. so she can go to college even though her mother had screamed and beat her many times for going. And that is why it’s so compelling to read because Precious turns the fact that she has been abused so many times into something to get past and work towards bigger and better things.

As a reader you feel extremely connected to Precious. She talks to the reader by showing you how she feels instead of just telling you. When Precious tells her mom she’s hungry and her mom still doesn’t cook her anything she shows us that by stealing chicken from a local deli down the block. This shows the reader how desperate she was for food and the things she will do to take care of herself. You feel sympathy for her as a reader because of the choices she has to make. As well as showing her emotions, you see a change in her throughout the story that the reader gets attached to. In the beginning of the book she lets her mother push her around but by the end you see that she is independent and wants nothing to do with her.

Push contains characters and a plot that will mesmerize you from the first sentence, as Sapphire makes sure you get sucked into her book. Although this book may be for older teens and adults, the content can be universally discussed about and can relate to many peoples issues dealt with today. All of the things Precious accomplishes in this book make her a role model to young women everywhere.
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Mar 27, 2010 Kaylam713 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 7th-grade-books

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 stressed l...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 20, 2010 April rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: multicultural

Push by Sapphire is the story of an impoverished, traumatized, illiterate seventeen year old African-American girl named Precious Jones who overcomes so many obstacles in trying to turn her horrid life around. I mean srsly in this book it's one bad thing after another, with maybe a handful of good things that happen.
Read the rest of my review here

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May 21, 2012 Bekah Archamabeault rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was like nothing I have read before. Right off the bat Sapphire throws you into Precious' world, you read through the harsh truths of what some people experience everyday. From the beginning the language is vulgar an the detail extremely disturbing. Yet the story couldn't be written any other way. Without all the horrible details we wouldn't be able to understand what has fallen on this young girl's shoulders. You find yourself questioning humanity.
I would in no way recommend this to...more

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May 22, 2010 Teacherhuman rated it 5 of 5 stars

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, "A Blood Sp...more

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Jun 04, 2013 Kalani Upshaw rated it 4 of 5 stars

In the novel Push by Sapphire a girl name Clarice Precious Jones, who is 16 years old, lives in Harlem,New York in an apartment with her mom, Mary. Precious is a obese and illiterate girl who deals with abuse verbally and physically from people and her own family. In the novel Precious is pregnant with her second child from her father who rapes her while her mother does nothing but watch. Precious has been molested by her father since she was little. She deals with verbal abuse from students at...more In the novel Push by Sapphire a girl name Clarice Precious Jones, who is 16 years old, lives in Harlem,New York in an apartment with her mom, Mary. Precious is a obese and illiterate girl who deals with abuse verbally and physically from people and her own family. In the novel Precious is pregnant with her second child from her father who rapes her while her mother does nothing but watch. Precious has been molested by her father since she was little. She deals with verbal abuse from students at school and also verbal and physical abuse from her mom. Precious's mom Mary does nothing but bring her down and tell her she'll never be anything in life. Her mother claims Precious and her first child Mongo even though she doesn't actually keep Mongo. She just claims them so she can get the child welfare money. Precious gets kicked out of school for being pregnant and she ends up going to a alternative school called Each-One-Teach-One with a teacher named Ms. Rain. She meets nine other girls who soon become her friends. Ms. Rain teaches Precious how to read and write and helps her to get her GED. Ms. Rain helps Precious when she has her baby and run away by taking her in and giving her a place to live. Ms. Rain helps Precious have a better life for herself and helps her to see that she is somebody and can do anything he sets her mind too.

In my opinion I think this is a really good book. It sends a good message in the end and that no matter what situation your in or how hard things are its still possibly to get out of those tough situations and make a better life for yourself. This book is also different from other books I've read because it's from the words of Precious so the grammar is very bad but it makes the story more real and from her point of view.

People who like novels that send good messages with a lot of drama should read this book. If you like books with tragedy that end happily you should also read this book. It keeps you entertained and drawled in throughout the whole novel.

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Dec 17, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own

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 was initially a little str...more 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 was initially a little strange, but I have fun with "dialect" books with similar spelling or grammar issues, so this didn't bother me much. The vulgarity was definitely over the top and very harsh...it did make me cringe a bit, but I pushed through it.

What was the hardest for me, and likely for most readers, was the absolute raw and brutal honesty with which the abuse was treated in this novel. Since it's presented in the synopsis and the first few pages, I don't consider it a spoiler to tell you that this is the story of a teenage girl (ironically named "Precious") who has been raped by her father for the majority of her life (seriously...the 'majority' being since toddler-hood). She is now giving birth to her second child/sibling by her father. Her mother is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive as well. They live in a welfare situation where Precious is essentially a slave to her mother's whims.

The first chapter (and additional passages scattered throughout the book) are graphic, raw, and absolutely stunning. I came away from the reading disgusted at 'humanity.'

The writing style is in first person and thus is very closely tied to the main character. The language used is poetically and articulately placed on the page in such a way to make Precious a very vivid character who is very real. Despite her difficulties with language (despite starting the novel in 9th grade with passing grades, she is completely illiterate and likely hasn't learned anything in school ever), the text portrays her emotions and motivations beautifully. The descriptions of the world around her are striking and vivid as well.

This is very much NOT a book for children. The themes involved could be very eye-opening for teenagers, but because of their presentation and the vulgarity and graphic themes, I would not recommend this to young teens...and not even to older teens unless I felt they were sufficiently mature.

Honestly, I have a hard time even recommending this to most adults. There are some that I could confidently recommend it to (social workers, secondary education teachers, etc.). However, to the general population, I would be very nervous to recommend this book because it is so blunt and raw. At the same time, I can't "not" recommend it...or rather, if somebody (with adequate maturity/sensitivities) picked up the book and asked if it was worth reading, my answer is YES.

This is a hard book to get through due to emotional and moral sensitivities. However, it raises some excellent 'action points' to the reader to think about the state of "humanity" and the "system" (welfare, schools, etc).

It's not something I'll read again and again...but it's something that I'll think about for a long time.

****
4 stars(less)

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May 20, 2013 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars

I can't believe I forgot to review this book. The first time I saw the trailer for the movie Precious, based on the novel by Saphire, I wanted to get my hands on this before the movie came out. The movie and the book are almost mirror copies of each other but the movie is defiantly more intense. I really like how the book is full of misspellings and bad grammar but I can still read it. It makes me feel Precious' is real, it makes it seem the novel is really her words. The reason why I gave this...more

1 like · like · see review

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About Sapphire

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 and enrolled...more 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 and enrolled at the City College of San Francisco before dropping out to become a "hippie". In the mid 1970s Lofton attended the City College of New York and obtained a MFA degree at Brooklyn College. Lofton held various professions before starting her writing career, working as a performance artist as well as a teacher of reading and writing.
Career

Lofton moved to New York City in 1977 and immersed herself in poetry. She also became a member of a gay organization named United Lesbians of Color for Change Inc. She wrote, performed and eventually published her poetry during the height of the Slam Poetry movement in New York. Lofton took the name "Sapphire" because of its one-time cultural association with the image of a "belligerent black woman," and also because she said she could more easily picture that name on a book cover than her birth name.
Sapphire self-published the collection of poems Meditations on the Rainbow in 1987. As Cheryl Clarke notes, Sapphire's 1994 book of poems, American Dreams is often erroneously referred to as her first book. One critic referred to it as "one of the strongest debut collections of the 1990s".
Her first novel, Push, was unpublished before being discovered by literary agent Charlotte Sheedy, whose interest created demand and eventually led to a bidding war. Sapphire submitted the first 100 pages of Push to a publisher auction in 1995 and the highest bidder offered her $500,000 to finish the novel. The book was published in 1996 by Vintage Publishing and has since sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Sapphire noted in an interview with William Powers that "she noticed Push for sale in one of the Penn Station bookstores, and that moment it struck her she was no longer a creature of the tiny world of art magazines and homeless-shelters from which she came". The novel brought Sapphire praise and much controversy for its graphic account of a young woman growing up in a cycle of incest and abuse.
A film based on her novel premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. It was renamed Precious to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push. The cast included Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, who won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Precious' mother Mary, Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz. Sapphire herself appears briefly in the film as a daycare worker.
Sapphire's writing was the subject of an academic symposium at Arizona State University in 2007. In 2009 she was the recipient of a Fellow Award in Literature from United States Artists.
Sapphire currently lives and works in New York City.

She has recently released a companion novel to "Push" that focuses on Precious's son, titled "The Kid".
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Trivia About Push

17 trivia questions

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Quotes from Push

“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)” — 39 people liked it

“Depression is anger turned inward.” — 19 people liked it

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