Book Revew - Push

Andy

The novel Push, by Sapphire, portrays an American Experience that most people are not familiar with. Push is the story of a young girl, Precious Jones, who must deal with a lot of negative situations that are associated (stereotyped) with life in Harlem. One of the perceptions of street life in a poor urban area is teenage pregnancy; by the age of sixteen Precious is expecting her second child. Both of her children were fathered by her own father as he repeatedly raped Precious.

Another perception associated with poor urban life is someone living off welfare and not making any attempts to do anything to get off the system; in this story Precious' mother is receiving welfare for Precious and Precious' daughter Mongo. Little Mongo lives with Precious' grandmother even though her mother collects welfare for the baby. The mother stays home all day and relies on Precious to go shopping, to stand in line and collect the welfare check, to do the cooking and cleaning; Precious is also used as a punching bag for verbal and physical assaults when the mother is displeased. Precious fills another stereotype by being an uneducated black teenager. Through the use of phonetic spelling and "ghetto talk" the reader can begin to imagine the attitude and culture that surrounds Precious.

URL: http://www.angelfire.com/ny/myfreakinpage

Added at: 20:15 5/16/100

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