PUSH

Push by Sapphire was a rough book. It wasn't bad or took long to read or anything like that it was just rough. At every turn nothing seemed to go right for the main character Precious. Whether it is being repeatedly raped and beaten by her father, and possibly mother at some points, or not getting an education at school and no one caring she also ended up having two children from her father one with severe Downs Syndrome. Like I said kind of rough, no happy butterflies and rainbows in this book...actually ironically enough there is one passage where she does mention butterflies. The depressing story as well as the way it is written, I am blanking on the name for it but when the person writes the way they speak, is what made it rough.

It was a good book though and you really felt for Precious. You got an interesting view into the her mind and that is something that isn't too common. I am curious to see what was "wrong" with her. That sounds terrible but I mean from a strictly psychological curiosity standpoint. The way she would describe things and her perception of the world make it seem like she has something wrong, be it something with a long name from a text book or simply because she was abused, put down, and not loved(if not downright hated) for the majority of her life.

It was almost a bit frustrating too because you could see where her stream of consciousness would lead her almost to a breakthrough where she could move past things and begin to heal but something would interfere. It was good to see the improvements she did make and the part where she goes to an incest survivors meeting was sad, interesting, and amusing all at the same time. Hearing the stories of abuse was sad, seeing her actually open up even though she didn't say much was interesting because she said all she could and all she had to, and her realization that even skinny white girls had issues was pretty funny. There were enough light and good moments so that the book wasn't all depressing. After that meeting when she was being "Accepted" by the other girls there her internal monologue was also interesting about how her parents knew her for 16 years and hated her but these girls knew her for 16 minutes and liked her. She was clearly starting to muster up some self worth, if albeit not much.