The book I choose to read was Push by Sapphire. Push depicts the lifestyle of a young sixteen year old black girl named Claireece precious Jones. Throughout the book Claireece and everyone around her identifies her by Precious. Precious lives in Harlem NY with her mother, who is an abusive parent, precious is physically and mentally abused by both her mother and her in and out farther. Precious’ mother beats her and sexually abuses while her farther also abuses her by raping her since the age of the three in the presence of the mother; who does nothing to stop him from abusing Precious. By the age of twelve Precious had her first child by her farther, her son was diagnosed with down syndrome and Precious had decided that the young baby boy should be named little mango and that he should live with her grandmother because he looked funny to her. Later on in the story precious is sixteen and has another baby by her farther that she names Abdul. Since precious has had many struggles in her life she was not able to complete her schooling and be a high school student. Precious as a child struggled with reading and writing and throughout the book it is present to the readers that she has some type of a delay. It is shocking throughout the book to know that Precious’ mother does not even want her daughter to have an education but wants her to live off public aid and rather beat and abuse her daughter to death. However, Precious is against her mother’s opinions but things start to change for Precious when a social worker begins to take a front seat in Precious’ life. Precious at first is against the idea of attending an alternative program, but this program helps kids like Precious to have a better life and learn to deal with their problems. At first Precious has an emotional wall built up but that soon changes for her and her guard is let down. Precious towards the book I believe has a different outlook on her life and has more hope to better herself and be a mother to her son because of the new environment she was put in which had a positive influence on her.
The quotes I choose were: “sure you can do anything when you talking or writing, it’s not like living when you can only do what you doing(pg.3). This quote is powerful to me because it has such great meaning I think to anyone who is facing problems like Precious or different from hers. It goes to show that life is sometimes harder to understand but while writing or talking about one’s life it is easier to understand and release more feelings vs. just living life in a constant routine. The other quote is “is life like a hammer to beat me down?”(pg.96). I consider this such a great simile , because I think many people could relate to life as hammer beating them down and causing them pain. I think these two quotes representative most of the book Push because throughout the book Precious felt like her life was only causing her problems and only beating her down although she faced pain within her life she learned to write and express herself and understand who she is in a different manner. I personally enjoyed the book it was pretty graphic to me at times but I think any young adult could handle the meaning of this book. This book isn’t for only people who may be experiencing similar situations as Precious but for anyone who may sometimes see their life as a gray cloud or just may want to experience life in another person’s view. Overall the book was good and I recommend everyone to read it
