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Work InformationPush by Sapphire
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Life Skills Digital audiobook narrated by the author I’ve wanted to read this ever since the Oscars ceremony that highlighted the film (which I have yet to see). Precious Jones is a young pregnant black teenager, who is functionally illiterate and the product of an abusive home. But Precious has a fierce determination to care for the baby growing inside her and to better her life. She WILL learn to read. She WILL keep her baby. She WILL succeed. The issues raised are horrific and difficult to read about and process. Brava to Sapphire for highlighting the plight of young people such as her protagonist. The writing is raw and brutal; the story is gripping and inspiring. My heart broke for Precious, even as I cheered her on. I did have a copy of the text handy, as I typically do for audiobooks. But I didn’t look at it until I had finished listening. On opening that first page I am struck by the author’s use of vernacular dialect, and the kind of misspellings a person like Precious would resort to in writing her own story. I’m reminded of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and how listening to the audio of that work made it easier to absorb the story. The author narrates the audiobook herself, and I cannot imagine that anyone else would have done a better job. I didn't really want to read this book; however our f2f book-club wanted to. I could tell from the previews of the movie that this wasn't going to be an easy read as far as the topics. It was an easy ready as far as it was quick not very long. The subject is intense... but the character is interesting Precious becomes more herself as she learns to read and write. She has a voice and she eventually learns to use it.
What do you get if you borrow the notion of an idiosyncratic teen-age narrator from J. D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and mix it up with the feminist sentimentality and anger of Alice Walker's "Color Purple"? The answer is "Push," a much-talked-about first novel by a poet named Sapphire, a novel that manages to be disturbing, affecting and manipulative all at the same time. Belongs to SeriesPrecious (1) Is retold inHas the adaptationIs abridged inHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Fiction.
African American Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world begins to open up for her when a courageous, determined teacher bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary. From the Hardcover edition.. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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