Push - My Review

[ACBaltimore]

While I see the perspective of the author (Sapphire) trying to strike a nerve by sheer shock, This book falls short in many ways.

The story has be done many times over in movies and books, Sapphire simply took a more descriptive approach… descriptive to the point of making the story revolting. Described in detail is the sexual relationship and abuse of Precious Jones by both of her parents. I mean DETAIL that would make a porn star blush.

Precious is an illiterate black girl in Harlem that has two kids by her Father. She fights to rise above it all… like I said the story lacks creativity and originality. Here is where the book fails in epic proportions. Sapphire writes the dialog in the same broken English that illiterate Precious presumably speaks with. While reading the book you have to fight to understand words like fahver, wiff, maff, usta and a host of other nearly unreadable dialog.

Sapphire uses the premise of the very unoriginal Precious Jones story to seemingly promote her own racist agenda. The entire book is laced with stereotypes and “white man is keeping me down” racism. She slings racist terms that would never go to press if written by a Caucasian. I suppose Sapphire thought the white man should pay for Precious’s fahver raping her from ages 3-16.

This book just fails on so many levels it is unbelievable it has attained so much attention. I intend to now see the movie, perhaps that will offer a perspective point the novel grossly failed to convey.

[bookworma]

yes i agree its hard to read... and there is no creativity or originality.. but its a true story and true storys dont have an author behind them using their imagination or creativity.. just memories...

[ACBaltimore]

[best4buys]

Sapphire, herself a former reading teacher, was clearly influenced by real-life people and that is conveyed strongly throughout the novel as all of the characters -- major and minor -- are complete and three-dimensional. Sapphire took the step in acknowleding this problem by putting it into words, even though the words make some uncomfortable.

It is the story of a very resilient young lady who gets raped by her father and has two children by him before the age of 16. Her mother is a terror to her, but she is trying to make her way in the world, trying to finish high school and make something of herself. The language is harsh, but realistic, and the way it is written reflects her illiteracy, which improves over the course of time. It's hard, emotionally, to read, because one feels sympathy for her character; the book is also hard to put down- it's very engaging and because it elicits sympathy you want to keep turning the page to see where her life will lead. It's very sad to realize that there are a lot of people in her situation with probably no future in front of them.