Performance poet Sapphire unflinchingly probes the consciousness of an all-too-real teenager from a severely abusive household. Push opens to find Precious? Fat, unloved, illiterate, deeply confused, routinely raped by her father, and physically and emotionally molested by her mother?enduring her second incestuous pregnancy.
Crawling from self-hatred and violent loneliness to determination and, occasionally, hope, Precious enters a pre-GED program, learns to read, bears her second child, and breaks from her parents, all under the inspiration of Blue Rain, her steadfastly encouraging and apparently tireless new teacher. Precious's name loses its irony but soon takes on a dark new meaning as she learns the extent of her father's abuse. Written as an internal monologue and journal entries by Precious, with her rudimentary spelling skills and abrupt transitions, Push is compelling, graphic, and occasionally facile but disturbing and not soon forgotten.
The books has been adapted into a screen play which premiered at the Sundance Film Festivalwhere it won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for best drama, as well as a Special Jury Prize for supporting actress Mo'Nique. The film's title had been changed to Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, which was confirmed soon afterward by the film's distributor Lionsgate. The change was made to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push.
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