Precious: A Novel

Push is the debut novel of American author Sapphire. Thirteen years after its release, it was made into Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire.
Table of contents

But I will warn you, if you're a self-proclaimed Grammar Nazi, your head could possibly explode. Rest assured, though, all errors and broken syntax is on purpose. Push or the movie tie-in title Precious , by Sapphire I'm a big fan of books written in vernacular if the voice rings true and the book is short. Push or the movie tie-in title Precious , by Sapphire, is an emotionally-charged look at a sexually-abused girl and her struggle to become literate and do better for her and her children. The book is written from this molested teenager's point of view, so you will experience her growth both in the areas of reading and maturation.

The novel is equally funny and heart-wrenchingly bleak. But it is the honesty of the voice that struck me the hardest. This is not a biography. These things did not actually happen. But it feels like the relaying of true events. Not often am I disgusted to the point of wanting to put a book down, but this book caused me to lay it aside several times. Even so, I managed to read it in a hour period. Herein you will experience the most vile human behavior told in the simplest language. Poor Precious cannot win. But her struggle is fascinating. And the best part is, even at rock bottom, she finds hope.

A truly touching novel. Reading this is like witnessing the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into butterfly. Highly recommended with the caveat that this novel is sometimes hard to read due to both content and intended spelling and grammatical errors. A master class in human evil. May 21, Teacherhuman rated it it was amazing. I love this book. I hate this book. I'm a binge reader -- I can swallow whole a page novel from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.

It took me 3 weeks to read this huge short book. I had to put it down when I felt how little Precious thought of herself. I had to put it down when her mother admits her role in her child's abuse. I had to put it down so I could think of ways to kill this fictional pitiful girl's fictional stepfather. The fact that it is "just" fiction doesn't matter a lick.

Navigation menu

The reality base for this fiction is haunting and painful. I hope I am like Miz Rain to the kids who come into my classroom in that kind of pain. This is one of those books that's so real hell, I taught a kid like this at an alternative school in Chicago it'll never get into a high school curriculum. It's that good, that authentic, that "dangerous". I avoid the hype around vogue books and authors, but this one delivered the goods. The language is definitely vulgar, violent and hyper-sexual, but the voice I'd never compare a book to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", but it is ironic that Sapphire mentions Twain's great book This is one of those books that's so real hell, I taught a kid like this at an alternative school in Chicago it'll never get into a high school curriculum.

Generally you'll see an author establish a voice for their protaganist very early and then you'll hear it fade away, maybe arise later in the action. But like Huck, Precious Jones never loses what makes her Precious - opinionated, insecure, thoughtful, unapologetic and curious, and growing Maybe she's more like Huck than I thought.

I actually listened to this book through iTunes and the narrator was the best I've ever encountered in a fiction book-on-CD.

Sapphire Releases Graphic Sequel To 'Push'

I highly recommend experiencing "Precious" this way. Feb 01, dollmatic rated it liked it Shelves: Poignant and unapologetically raw. Precious' ability to keep fighting against such dire odds both amazed and inspired me. This is a story I will never forget, and I truly look forward to the film adaptation. View all 9 comments. Mar 14, KFed rated it liked it Shelves: This is an important novel, though it lacks many of the pretensions that would convince us so.

Push , now known as the book that inspired last year's much-renowned hit film Precious , is the first-person account of the teenage life of Claireece Precious Jones, a Harlem teenager who as of writing this account has given birth to two children, a boy and a girl, both products of her rape at the hands of her biological father. In terms of Push's social narrative, it only goes downhill from there: Preci This is an important novel, though it lacks many of the pretensions that would convince us so. Precious is further abused sexually and otherwise by her mother, and furthermore by "the system" -- some gross intersection of the Welfare State, the policies of social workers, and the American education system.

Precious enrolls in an alternative school, and the lessons she learns there about language, learning and self-expression are what, ultimately, change her life. Context, here, is very important. Sapphire, the novel's author, published the novel in the mids but chose as its setting the late 80s. The AIDS crisis, characterized as it was by a demonization of queer people, poor people and people of color, was booming in American media. As well, Ronald Reagan had by then already inserted the "Welfare Queen" into the cultural lexicon. Indeed, for most of the period during which Push takes place, Ronald Reagan is president.

Precious is or would be, if not for circumstances that I won't reveal here a welfare beneficiary. She lives in a halfway house. If we're thinking in terms of social commentary, certainly Sapphire has a point to make, here. But that's not what makes this an important novel. In its own quiet way, Push manages to say as much about literary history and form and especially African American literary history and form as it does about the troubling social circumstances that constitute the world -- that is, our world -- in which girls like Precious live.

Yet it does so without mapping those literary conceits onto its characters in a way that might invalidate the the truth of those experiences.

This is a novel whose language emanates outward from its subject, rather than mapping language onto that subject for the sake of the reader's understanding. Precious's tendency to compare her mind and the images and memories therein to a television set, for example, and her illustrations of what she sees and watches in her mind might lend themselves to the easy categorizations of consumerism and thus postmodernism, and yet the novel isn't really concerned with being about literature or form in that way.

The narrative feels almost disappointingly incomplete, in fact -- there is no true sense of resolution here, no sense of climactic feeling for the reader -- precisely because making a cogent "narrative" of Precious's life would bring awareness to narrative as a literary conceit largely built for readers and not the subjects therein. Sapphire never allows her book to distract from the fact that Precious's account isn't really for the "reader," but for the girl herself.

Precious comes alive, in that way. The book is repetitive, even monotonous at times; its images and references are limited because Precious is limited. She doesn't tell us everything -- doesn't give all the dirty details, in a way that may prove frustrating. But a reader-friendly narrative in this context would seem almost perverse. In a novel that is largely concerned with the consequences of social perversion, we might bid the author thanks for resisting the urge to make perverse voyeurs of the novel's readers. One of the biggest supporters of the film adaptation of this novel was none other than Barbara Bush, who was moved by the film's and thus the novel's emphasis on literacy as a way of engendering social freedom.

She's onto something, though this is naive. In a sense, Push is about what novels by black American authors have always been about: Consider the ways by which black Americans became English-language literate, in American history. Consider the time, the need, the circumstances. Is it any wonder, then, that Sapphire chooses literacy as the site of her social commentary?

View all 3 comments. Feb 08, Gaijinmama rated it it was amazing Shelves: I don't mind monsters, rotting corpses or exploding heads, but this book proves my theory that no fictional horror can ever top the horrible things human beings do to each other in real life.

The narrator, Precious, is abused in unspeakable ways by her parents, but she is also the smartest, funniest, most insightful and vibrant voice I've read in a very long time. In spite of being violated, she manages to soar above it all, telling it like it is and demonstrating just Beautiful and devastating. In spite of being violated, she manages to soar above it all, telling it like it is and demonstrating just how powerful a person can be when she educates herself and makes peace with her demons.

Also, her story shows just how much positive influence a good teacher and the sharing of the written word, can have. Holy hell this book hits you straight in the guts right from the beginning and doesn't let up. Raw and powerful the writing style gives it an authenticity that gets to you, although it got slightly on my nerves after awhile.

You immediately feel sorry for this poor girl. So glad there is a a silver lining at the end of all this with a glimmer of hope to hang onto. Oct 25, Natalie Richards rated it it was amazing. She is beaten and sexually abused by both her parents and bullied at school. She believes she is ugly and worthless. Then she is placed in an alternative teaching programme, where she learns to read and write. This is a harrowing read but I admire the way the author, Sapphire, constructed her writing and really allowed Precious to shine.

You will cheer Precious to the end as she learns to love herself and strive for a better life for herself and her children. Jul 01, Ms. Jones rated it liked it. I feel fifty-fifty about the novel, PUSH. It tells an inspiring story about how reading and writing can save you from any situation you might encounter, no matter how tough. As an English teacher, I have to support that message! The characters, however, are not as well-developed as they could be. Sometimes while reading this book, I felt that Precious kept encountering more and more obstacles just so that the author, Sapphire, could play with readers' emotions.

I also felt that she used curse words just because she wanted readers to feel stunned. I would recommend this book for the story, but I'm not completely sure about the delivery of that story. View all 6 comments. Sep 12, abby rated it it was ok Shelves: Thank goodness this book was short. There was a profound moment here and there, and I get what the author was trying to achieve, but this book rose little above the category of misery porn. The entire book can be summarized in one line: Michelle I hadn't heard of this book before, your review though short speaks volumes-- I doubt this would be of interest to me either, thanks abby: Sep 12, Sep 05, Pollopicu rated it did not like it.

The story is a typical ghetto tragedy of a young uneducated girl who's raped by her father and severely abused also raped by her mother. She ends up having two children by her dad, one of which who has Downs Syndrome. She also sadly ends up contacting the HIV virus from him as well. I feel the author took the easy way out in making the book too shockingly vulgar, which is the only thing I felt held this novel together. The writer definitely tried too hard in that aspect of the story, and I was The story is a typical ghetto tragedy of a young uneducated girl who's raped by her father and severely abused also raped by her mother.

The writer definitely tried too hard in that aspect of the story, and I wasn't really impressed by it. It's a shame the Philadelphia Inquire proclaimed this book may find a place in the African-American literary canon. If that's true, What does this say about African-American literature? This story-line has been done so many times in literature and especially in film.

I think people are more like 'oooh this book is so good because her father rapes her and she says she likes it'. I myself am not so easily convinced. Also Precious Jones' ignorant talk sounded more like bad ghetto Yorkshire than a girl who is simply ignorant and uneducated. Just because she couldn't read or write doesn't mean she shouldn't be able to speak. I knew people who grew up in bad situations who couldn't read or write, they spoke fine. The writer makes her talk like she's been living in a basement for 16 years.

The journals provided the girls with a sense of anonymity they needed in order to talk about the horrendous things they had to endure in their day to day home life. I would love to enjoy a good piece of urban literature, but this was so far from it. View all 17 comments. Mar 09, Jason Pettus rated it it was amazing. Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally. Here in Chicago, the Uptown neighborhood where I live is still chock-full of lower-class black families, a situation that originally developed during the "ghettoization" of this neighborhood in the white-flight s; and so among other things, this has led my neighborhood library to stock an entire wall Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.

Here in Chicago, the Uptown neighborhood where I live is still chock-full of lower-class black families, a situation that originally developed during the "ghettoization" of this neighborhood in the white-flight s; and so among other things, this has led my neighborhood library to stock an entire wall of what they call "African-American Literature," an endless series of horribly bad melodramas that all seem to have covers featuring shirtless gangsters draped in gaudy gold jewelry, with titles like Dark Chocolate and Thug Daddy and with ashamed authors hiding behind such one-word pseudonyms as "Diamond" and "Tiger.

Who would do something like that? I'm sure it's because of this that it took me so long to become aware of the remarkable novel Push by one-named author "Sapphire," although now of course just about everyone has heard of it; after all, it's the source material behind the film Precious , which this year racked up all kinds of awards including several Oscar nominations, and has inspired a growing amount of people to declare it the best movie about lower-class blacks ever made.

And so it's ironic that the book should happen to be just about the diametric opposite of that "African-American Literature" I was talking about before, in fact more an angry response to those kinds of books than anything resembling them; because without the high-profile film adaptation the novel would've likely faded into obscurity, and ended up getting lumped in with all the other unreadable crap I see at my local library on a daily basis. It highlights a growing problem within the literary community in our Obamian "post-race" age, one that is rarely discussed among polite company -- that for some reason, it's seemingly okay for Caucasians to be offered a broad choice in themes and genres as far as their intellectual entertainment, but among all other races it's considered an unpardonable sin, not only among the white executives making the decisions but even the traditional community leaders within such racial groups.

Just look at the shameful amount of scorn that black leaders have heaped on the comic strip The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder, merely for attempting to create something enjoyable for black people who happen to be cynical, over-educated and pop-culture savvy. Written by a performance poet during the cultural height of the poetry-slam format, the textually complex Push isn't as much the weepy tearjerker you might think it is, but surprisingly enough is actually more like the ghetto version of the science-fiction novel Flowers for Algernon.

See, it's the story of a morbidly obese teenage girl named Precious, who has been dumped on by life in about the most thorough way possible -- raised by an abusive, alcoholic, mentally retarded mother, sexually abused for decades by her father, the teenaged mother of two children of incest, one of whom has Down's Syndrome, unable to read or write, and HIV-positive on top of everything else. But right at the beginning of the novel, Precious is enrolled in an alternative educational organization designed exactly for lumpen-proletariats like herself; and since the whole thing is written in a real-time first-person voice, we literally watch Precious through her diary entries progress from barely being able to communicate to eventually becoming a functioning member of society, just like Flowers for Algernon but without the experimental drug of the former.

This is where Sapphire's performance-poetry background really comes into play; because far from the illegible trainwreck you might think the beginning of such a book might be, she instead carefully combines Precious's broken English with a subconscious but very definite formal structure, to produce a haunting, rhythmic, utterly readable cadence, which much like Toni Morrison's Beloved uses the often derided dialect known as ebonics to instead turn in an unexpectedly powerful tale, a story that flows much more smoothly than you would ever think possible under such circumstances.

And also like Flowers for Algernon , Sapphire uses this framework not just to explore language but as an inventive way to dole out story information as well; because as Precious slowly learns to better and better communicate, she simultaneously learns to better and better understand the world around her, resulting in a series of revelations she makes about life throughout the book, and a series of steps taken to make that life better.

In fact, this seems to be Sapphire's main message, which of course so many people seemingly don't get -- that education leads directly to self-understanding, and that self-understanding leads directly to power. And that's why Push is ultimately a positive story, although it practically radiates anger at the world off each page like steam rising from a microwaved burrito; because as Precious starts actually accomplishing things in her life, even little things like reading a letter by herself for the first time or writing her first poem, she comes to realize for the first time not only how destructive the people and circumstances around her have been something she's always at least kind of understood , but that she also has the choice to walk away from it all if she wants, leading for example to some confrontational scenes with her mother near the end that are some of the most intense moments of the entire manuscript.

Precious would've never been able to come to these conclusions, Sapphire seems to be arguing, without the basic education that has trained her mind to start thinking this way in the first place; and that's a great message to convey, I think, that the main point of education is not just some abstract concept like "Reading Is Good," but that it literally changes the way your brain works, so that you can more easily understand both yourself and the environment in which you live. Now, yes, Push does end on a sour note -- an excruciating page section that is supposed to represent the final class writings of the troubled teens we've been following, full of the exact kind of terrible poetry and weepy memoirs that the rest of this book is an antidote against -- but it's easy enough to just skip this entire section if you want, especially since it's laid out in an entirely different typeface.

For the most part, though, I found Push to be a huge surprise, an imminently smarter and more entertaining story than I would ever expect from a project that's been embraced by the mainstream so whole-heartedly, and I'm looking highly forward now to checking out the movie version when it comes out on DVD, if for nothing else than to see how they possibly begin to deal with the overwhelming amount of inner-brain dialogue featured in the book version.

It comes highly recommended.

Movies in Theaters

This is a hard book to tackle due to its subject matter incest, abuse, disease, poverty and more , but I was prepared for that and I found it to be sad but not heavy, if that makes sense. And I love that the writing style immerses you in the character's head completely and without apology, making it a unique read, which is hard to find these days. My disappointment comes in the ending because we, the readers, aren't taken to our destination but rather dropped off on the road towards it. I wante This is a hard book to tackle due to its subject matter incest, abuse, disease, poverty and more , but I was prepared for that and I found it to be sad but not heavy, if that makes sense.

I wanted the book to be longer and more complete, and I have a feeling that, although I haven't seen the movie yet, the film version of "Precious" will create that better end structure I was left craving from the novel. The book is ultimately very provocative while exposing the details of a reality that are all too common in this world but rarely laid out so bluntly. Several years ago, when I was still in high school and believed that although the world wasn't wholly good, it wasn't too bad either, I came across a news item of an eight-year old girl in a Middle East country, who was repeatedly raped by her father, and thus made pregnant as well.

The news horrified and numbed me. Reading Push was, in a way, a huge reminder to me of that one incident, the one that probably stripped off the fancy glasses from my irises.

Push by Sapphire

When I read how Precious' mother Several years ago, when I was still in high school and believed that although the world wasn't wholly good, it wasn't too bad either, I came across a news item of an eight-year old girl in a Middle East country, who was repeatedly raped by her father, and thus made pregnant as well. When I read how Precious' mother blamed her for having sex with her husband, I was enraged. There are many cultures where the woman is still blamed for a rape.

Then it becomes a social stigma. Push especially brings out the victim's point of view very well. When her father rapes her, he calls her a lot of obscene words. When he thrusts himself into her, she is terribly guilty and confused about the feelings of pleasure that she gets. She doesn't want to enjoy it, and is ashamed of her body for betraying her.

Sapphire's Story: How 'Push' Became 'Precious'

She believes that the only way to learn to write is to write every day. Each girl is required to keep a journal. Rain reads their entries and provides feedback and advice. Precious is particularly moved by The Color Purple. While in the hospital for the birth of her second child, a boy she names Abdul Jamal Louis Jones, Precious tells a social worker that her first child is living with her grandmother. The confession leads to Precious' mother having her welfare taken away. When Precious returns home with her newborn baby, her mother is enraged and chases her out of the house.

Homeless and alone, she first passes a night at the armory, then turns to Ms. Rain who uses all of her resources to get Precious into a halfway house with childcare. Her new environment provides her with the stability and support to continue with school. The narrative prose, which is told from Precious' voice, continually improves in terms of grammar and spelling, and is even peppered with imagery and similes.

Precious has taken up poetry, and is eventually awarded the Mayor's office's literacy award for outstanding progress. The accomplishment boosts her spirits. With her attitude changing and her confidence growing, Precious finds herself thinking about having a boyfriend, a real relationship with someone near her age, with someone who attracts her interest. Her only sexual experience thus far has been the rape and sexual abuse by her father and, to a lesser extent, her mother. Although she tries to move beyond the trauma of her childhood and distance herself from her parents, an unwelcome visit from Precious' mother reveals that her father has died from AIDS.

Testing verifies that Precious is HIV positive, but her children are not. Her classmate Rita encourages Precious to join an incest support group, as well as an HIV positive group. The meetings provide a source of support and friendship for Precious as well as the revelation that her color and socioeconomic background weren't necessarily the cause of her abuse.

Women of all ages and backgrounds attend the meetings. Precious tells Mary that she finally sees her for what she is, and tells her mother that she will never see her or the children again, leaving with Mongo and Abdul. Weiss to retrieve her daughter, but Ms. Weiss silently rejects her and walks away.

Precious plans to complete a GED test to receive a high school diploma equivalency. She walks out into the city with both children in tow, ready to start a new life and have a brighter future. Ramona "Sapphire" Lofton the author of the novel makes a cameo appearance as a woman at a daycare center near the film's end. Daniels had said that he was attracted to the initial novel based on how "raw and honest" it felt.

She tried to make it easier for her. And maybe I could heal other people, too.

Preciosa Precious película completa español1

Initially, Daniels did not expect the movie to generate much buzz, expecting the movie to go straight to video , stating "That it made it to the big screen says there was an angel looking after me. Despite the dark subject matter, Sidibe has stated that the mood on the set was lighthearted, that "Every day was a party" and that the cast would frequently sing and tell jokes to "lighten the atmosphere.

The Weinstein Company claimed that they had "secured" their rights while Lionsgate stated that they owned the rights to the film's distribution in North America. Composer Robin Thicke , then married to the film's costar Paula Patton, wrote and produced "Push", the film's original main theme music. People Magazine Daily noted that the film "mainly had a music supervised soundtrack, but not much of a score, so there were popular songs placed in the movie. Based On The Novel By Sapphire; however, the title was later altered to avoid confusion with another film entitled Push.

Winfrey used her status as both a celebrity and a media personality to give the film what was described by Ben Child of The Guardian , as a "high-profile promotional push.


  • .
  • John Sinclair - Folge 1699: Wolfshatz (German Edition).
  • .
  • Yoga Therapy for Every Special Child: Meeting Needs in a Natural Setting;

Precious was given a limited-theatrical release on November 6, , and was originally scheduled to appear on screens only in North America. Due to the mature subject matter of the film, it was rated "R" by the Motion Picture Association of America MPAA in the United States, specifically for strong depiction of "child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive indecent language".

After riding that three-week wave of success, Precious began to see a decrease in box office earnings. However, the film holds the record as the highest grossing picture to open in fewer than theaters, and holds the record for the highest grossing average per screen for films shown in fewer than 50 theaters. Precious received favorable reviews from film critics, particularly for Sidibe's and Mo'Nique's performances.

Blu Rain as "disarming. Mary Pols of Time praised the film's fantasy sequences for being able to show the audience a "joyous Wizard of Oz energy" that is able to "open the door into Precious's mind in a way even [the author] Sapphire couldn't. Critic Jack Mathews wrote: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire' First-time screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher did yeoman's work turning Sapphire's graphic, idiomatic novel into a coherent and inspiring story about the journey of an abused Harlem teenager.

Erin Aubry Kaplan writes on Salon. It's a sign how much we needed to tell this story. And, perhaps, how many stories there are left to tell. Scott identifies the script's precise use of force and adept use of language, including a memorable line created by Fletcher for the adaptation: But just as Push achieves an eloquence that makes it far more than a fictional diary of extreme dysfunction, so too does Precious avoid the traps of well-meaning, preachy lower-depths realism. It howls and stammers, but it also sings Inarticulate and emotionally shut down, her massive body at once a prison and a hiding place, Precious is also perceptive and shrewd, possessed of talents visible only to those who bother to look.

At its plainest and most persuasive, her story is that of a writer discovering a voice. Rain and her lover Kimberly Russell , displaying her awakening literary intelligence even as she marvels at the discovery of her ignorance. Conversely, reflecting the transformation from script to screen, Dana Stevens of Slate disagrees with Gleiberman's suggestion that the "film makes you think" and argues that the film's "eagerness" to "drag" the audience "through the lower depths of human experience" leaves little space for independent "conclusions".

Stevens noted that while the film is about improvement and self-actualization, "it wields an awfully large cudgel" in contrast to Scott's view of balance: Perhaps sharing Mathews' view regarding the daunting challenge of adapting the harsh story of Push , Stevens' observes that "Daniels and Fletcher no doubt intended for their film to lend a voice to the kind of protagonist too often excluded from American movie screens: Precious has also received some negative responses from critics.

Writing for the New York Press , Armond White compared the film to the landmark but controversial The Birth of a Nation as "demeaning the idea of black American life," calling it "an orgy of prurience " and the "con job of the year. Bradshaw commended the film's acting and energy but said it was not quite the "transcendent masterpiece" some had made it out to be.

Precious received dozens of nominations in award categories, including six Academy Award nominations, not only for the film itself but for the cast's performances, the direction and cinematography, and the adaptation of the novel to the screenplay. The film was nominated in all three major categories at the Screen Actor Guild Awards: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.