Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

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 f...

If there's one thing I love, it's Indian authors - Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, and now, Thrity Umrigar. Indian authors, as a rule, tend to write really depressing literature with such a light and humorous tone that it makes reading about poverty and slums much more palatable (and I don't feel like slitting my wrists afterwards). The Space between us is a tale of 2 women of opposing social classes. Bhima (an uneducated grandmother who lives in the slums) works endless hours as a servant to Sera (a upper-middle class housewife), though the two have more of a friend-friend relationship than boss-underling one. Over the course of the novel, Umrigar details the personal histories of both women (who have helped each other equally over the years) and ultimately, the two share more than one would think. The climax of the novel is shocking, but ends on an unexpectedly cheerful note.