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Mental Health A Thon: Intersectional Rep(Black, Depression, Trauma Survivor)

4.5 Stars

I have had this book for YEARS. I bought it right around the time the movie came out but I never read it. I watched the movie and thought it was moving & great but I still didn't read the book. I don't tend to read "Misery Porn".

If you're asking What is Misery Porn?

It is books in which the characters experience one awful thing after another with no sort of resolution or end to the pain. Books in which the suffering seems gratuitous and extreme.

These books just keep stabbing you in the gut with terrible tragedy after terrible tragedy in hopes that you'll cry.

I'm not a crier, it takes a lot to make me cry. I haven't cried in 3 years. I'm not bragging about my toughness, I know I'm weird but I just don't cry. So it annoys me when I feel like a book is trying to force or manipulate me into crying. I don't like it. I was afraid that Push would be one of those books.

But I'm happy to say it wasn't.

Push is a tough read and Precious goes through more than anyone should ever have to but it felt more based in fact than most "Misery Porn" books. As a teenager I volunteered to help adults with reading problems(I'm not a good person, I only did for credit hours to graduate) and some of the stories these people shared were horrifying. Push may be fiction but for a lot people its fact. I have never felt more blessed to have been born to great parents, in a middle class neighborhood and to have gone to private school. My upbringing was boring and normal and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Push is about Precious Jones an illiterate 16 year old black girl living in Harlem. Her life is a waking nightmare. Her father rapes her and she has giving birth to 2 children with him. Her mother abuses her in every way possible physically, emotionally and sexually. The public school system has failed her she's 16 and still in middle school and she can't read or write.

I mean how the Fuck does that happen?

Precious doesn't have a soul in this world who loves or cares about her and she has zero self worth. Precious feels like she is invisible and has no future.

Until finally she is sent to an alternative school and a teacher actually takes an interest her education but most importantly this teacher takes an interest in her life.

Push is an amazing read but if you can't handle graphic descriptions of rape and other abuse DON'T READ THIS! Sapphire takes no prisoners with this one. Damn its intense but so important. I deducted half a star because the early pages are very hard to read because its written the way Precious talks and since Precious is illiterate its a confusing read.

I highly recommend it!