Skip to main content

Push: A Novel by Sapphire

By

After seeing a trailer of the film adaptation a few weeks ago (which looks to be wonderful), I decided to give this novel a try. At 16, Claireece Precious Jones has had an unimaginable amount of awful things thrown at her in her short life. At age 12, she became pregnant by her father, giving birth to a daughter with Down's Syndrome. At 16, she is not only impregnated but also given HIV by her father. Precious is poor and illiterate and lives in Harlem with her insane and highly abusive mother. Despite all of these odds, Precious manages to find her way to an alternative school where a kind teacher named Blue Rain takes it upon herself to steer Precious into a better direction.


Getting through this novel was difficult, not because of the language, but because of the endless amount of pity I felt towards this poor girl. Seriously, Precious goes through the ringer in this book and it only makes you want to root for her to succeed by the end.
For more information about the upcoming film, which won a lot of praise at Sundance, click here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ape House by Sara Gruen

By
In Gruen's debut novel Water for Elephants , readers fell in love with the titular elephant Rosie. In her second novel Ape House , a similar fondness occurs with the aforementioned apes. The cast of bonobos live happily in their Language Lab under the watchful eye of scientist Isabel Duncan. They are able to use sign language to communicate and enjoy playing around with visitors and the other scientists. Everything is going great until the lab gets bombed and the apes mysteriously disappear. Once the dust settles, Duncan is horrified to find out that the bonobos have been sold to a television producer who has casted them in their own 24 hour reality tv show. Joining forces with a newspaper reporter, an exotic dancer, animal activists and other research assistants, Duncan takes on the fight of her life to rescue her bonobos and give them the proper kind of life they deserve.
Post a Comment
Read more

Tomorrow by Graham Swift

By
Swift won the Booker Prize for Last Orders back in 2004(?)...but I don't think he'll go 2 for 2 with Tomorrow , a quick read about a family with a dark secret. Paula Hook lies awake on the eve before her and her husband Mike divulge a long kept secret to their twin teenagers. The story centers around the history behind this secret and the rationale behind it. Truthfully, I was kind of annoyed for most of the book. The build up goes on and on for many pages with, like, no pay off whatsoever. The ideas in my mind were juicier than the real "truth" that was going to be told to her children. Though the prose is extremely well-written, I still kept saying to myself, "jesus, get to the point already"
Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

By
This book falls into the category where you just WISH they'd make a movie out of it even though it probably would be lousy because the scenes wouldn't match up exactly with what's in your head. At any rate, Secret History is a lengthy thriller about a group of friends who attend a small college in Vermont and wind up murdering someone within their circle (I promise I'm not ruining anything, you find out who dies on the very first page). All of them are incredibly intelligent and highly interested in Classics. One night, they partake in a crazy Dionysian ritual and things just go downhill from there...Let's just say that people with big mouths are silenced in more ways than one. Though there was an awful lot of "academic" talk spread throughout the novel (think classics and ancient Greek philosophy), Tartt still manages to create a taut and suspenseful read. Some readers might object to the rampant drug and alcohol use, but it actually helps to captur...
Post a Comment
Read more