Precious Push Sapphire

The story continues past where the movie left off.

This was an incredibly quick read in the manner that diary stories are quick. Not exactly a diary, but almost, Precious is the journal of her incest and her determination to overcome her past. It seems I’m into reading books that were made into movies lately. I saw the movie before reading the book, so I knew what to expect in regards to the two babies that Precious has by her own father. More detailed in the book (but not exactly laid bare) is that Precious is also molested by her mother on a regular basis. I don’t recall this being mentioned in the movie…do you?

There are numerous mentions of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple throughout the book and there is enough reason why, especially because Precious is quite a lot like Walker’s Celie character. So much so, that Precious denies being anything like Celie at all (who discovers she is not a victim of incest after all. Celie’s father is not her father by blood). There were also numerous references to Louis Farrakhan, whom I know next to nothing about (must investigate). Lots of poetry mentions for Langston Hughes, hooray! The entire story takes place in Harlem. At one point even Precious wonders why she doesn’t think about the communities beyond.

SPOILER ALERT Different from the movie ending, the novel Push continues for about another 60 pages past where Hollywood stopped. Precious never does get to visit with her first child, Little Mongo, and gets referred to a halfway house by Miss Blue Rain, her teacher.  There she raises her second child, Abdul, and continues to go to the Each One Teach One program trying to work toward a G.E.D.  By the end of the book, she is reading at nearly a high school level, which is reflected in her better spelling, much like the diary of Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon.  Precious gets tested for the AIDS virus…and she is positive.  Abdul and Little Mongo are both negative.  Since this book was set in the late 1980′s, nothing much is said about medicating her HIV.  I remember the 80′s – it was a death sentence to be diagnosed with AIDS.


Of course the biggest difference between movie and book is the novel’s name was changed from Push to Precious.  Push refers to childbirth pains and to Precious’ life pains.  She is often told to push through the pain to get the reward.  I’m on the fence as to whether they should have changed it.  I think that Push may have had drug usage connotations and they (Oprah, Tyler Perry?) wanted to concentrate more on the character.

THe Color Purple Alice Walker

Precious reads much like the diary of Celie in The Color Purple.

I enjoyed the ending of the novel more than the movie.  A little more meat to chew on and a little more of Precious raising herself up.  The reader gets to discover more about the other girls at the school and hear some of their back stories.  With Precious’ desire to read, the book delivers a more literary view of her wins and losses.

Read this,especially if you liked The Color Purple or Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  It won’t take long.

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