Precious

Precious

Sapphire

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from the publisher):  Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time.

Review:   I am completely torn about this book.  On one hand, I hated reading this book; it's written from the point of view of an uneducated black girl from Harlem in the 1980s, which means the spelling, grammar and basic sentence structure are completely nonexistent, and the vulgarities are prevalent.  More importantly, Precious is sexually, physically and emotionally abused by her parents, and she is extremely descriptive (in a matter of fact way) about the abuse.  The author is using Precious' voice, I get it, but it was hard to read.

Everything about this book is disturbing.  But the message that Precious, with the help of a teacher, finds a way to pull herself out of the hell she's living in, get an education and raise her child provided a sense of hope.

So why didn't I give this a 1 star rating?  Well, I would say that this is a powerful book, but not one I personally enjoyed reading.

Rating: 2 stars