Reading Response #1

This weekend I read the novel Push by Sapphire. It’s a novel about an illiterate girl named Precious Jones and her journey through life, even though what life has given her so far is anything but pleasant. When I first started reading it I was extremely repulsed and angry because Precious’s dad raped her when she was 7, and started molesting her when she was 3. It’s written in a style that would be verbatim for a girl growing up in Harlem, and at first I found it hard to read, but in the end it made the story more than what it would have been if it was written how regular books are. At first I couldn’t relate to Precious’s life because I’ve never grown up in the ghetto, and I had great parents, but when I started to think about it I realized I could relate to her in a way. I still couldn’t relate to the atrocities she had to deal with every day, but I realized that her story is like a lot of others in the world. While the government laments about welfare and how it’s a vicious cycle, a money pit, this story made me realize that they don’t care at all about the people accepting the welfare checks. They only care about how much money they spend and don’t fix the problem at the root. Nobody ever helped Precious, even when she told the nurses that her baby was fathered by her own father. Nobody ever asked her if she understood what she was being taught, and was pushed through the system until one teacher decided to take the initiative to suggest alternative school for her. This book is also about going farther than appearances. From the outside it would seem that Precious was stupid, and was just like all the other stereotypes growing up in Harlem; an unintelligent teenage mother destined to become a drain on the city. If you really got to know her though you understood that she was a girl just trying to get through a heart wrenching and terrible situation, and that she had a hunger to learn and better her prospects, if only someone would give her the chance. This book taught me to look beyond first impressions, and that even though sometimes life deals you a horrible hand you can still persevere and find goodness in it, and be a good person yourself. It was an extremely inspiring book.