Review: "Push" by Sapphire

Precious Jones is 12 years old when she goes to hospital. Her mother has beaten her up (with an iron skillet), punched and kick her. Because Precious was having contractions. In the hospital, the battered, obese pre-teen girl gives birth to a daughter and when the nurses ask the name of the father, she replies "Carl Kenwood Jones". The nurses flinch. Why? Because that is also the name of Precious' own father. This scene gives you a very good idea about Precious and the trouble she goes through. Growing up in poverty in 1980's Harlem, Precious' life revolves around being verbally abused by her mother and physically abused by her father. When she is 16, she is thrown out of school for being pregnant  - again, and again the father is man who also calls himself Precious' father.
Precious is a big girl. Not round or chubby but fat as in critically obese and this is how she hides the second pregnancy, knowing well that her mother will blame her for the circumstances. However, a teacher takes pity on Precious who is actually quite a devoted student and helps her get a place at Each One Teach One, a school for illiterate teens and adults. Because even though Precious loves her classes, she also cannot read to save her life. At Each One Teach One Precious for the first time in her life meets compassion, friendliness and care and she meets girls and women who have suffered through some of the same things as herself. In the classroom she learns not only how to read (Alice Walker's The Colour Purple) but she also learns about independence and ambition and about taking life in her own hands.

"Push" by Sapphire is a different book, a special book. It is written in Precious' own words and dialect making it rather difficult to read if you are not into Harlem street slang but I found it easy enough to get into actually. And it does give Precious her own voice, making the story more authentic than if it was written in perfect New England English.

I found the story very emotional to read because Precious is such a lovely, clever girl with such a low self-esteem. She continually wishes that she has been born as a skinny white girl with not a care in the world. Being a mother-of-two at sixteen as well as an incest and battery survivor with a reading disability and no place to live can't be easy - and it certainly isn't for Precious. And that is actually what makes it difficult to read because it is a lot of trouble to take in. I mean, nothing is really good in Precious' life. It is all very grim and even when it gets better, it is still pretty awful.

However, as much as it was over the top, it was also a good read because it engaged me on a very emotional level. It reminded me of "Lucky" by Alice Sebold because it is written with the same blunt honesty and deals with extremely difficult topics in a very matter-of-fact manner.

Ooh and by the way - it has been made into a movie "Precious" that I am definitely going to have to see! When it came out it got great reviews and I can't wait to see how it treats the story of Precious.

Read it if: You want to face the ugly sides of life. Want to motivate yourself to do more charity work.

Review: "The Sopranos" by Alan Warner

This Christmas I spent quite a few hours with old friends. Not the friends I went to school with but friends that I have met in the library, on the pages of Alan Warner's excellent novel "The Sopranos". As some of you may know, I absolutely love this book and I have read it several times and reading it again, under the duvet while on vacation was a real treat!

In a port town somewhere in Scotland a group of teenage girls from the Catholic school Our Lady of Perpetual Succour are preparing to go on a school trip to the big city. They are all in the choir and will be competing in a choir competition with a less than saintly intent to lose so that they can come back to the port town the same evening. Why, you might ask. Because a submarine is coming into harbour and they are hoping the there will be sailors aplenty in the local disco. Yes, these are not your stereotypical Catholic choirgirls. More like girls gone wild.

The sopranos are at the heart of mischief, Finn (the Cooler), Manda, Kylah, Chell and wee Orla are teenagers in a some forgotten corner of a windy country. Poverty, cheap alcohol and teenage pregnancy is the order of the day and education and a future beyond the harbour town is something that they can only dream of. Not that they do - oh no, these girls have way too much fun to worry about things such as the future. They run the school and the Mantrap (the local disco) and spend their time worrying about boys, drinks and Orla's cancer treatment.
As these wild young women go on their trip to the big city, they defy all rules. Their fizzy drinks bottles are filled to the brim with alcohol, they have changes of clothes (mini-skirts, Doc Martens, the works) and make-up in their bags and they are up to no good. The story follows them as they head out on adventures and get to know each other and the stuck-up, prissy and rich Kay Clarke better.

It is a tour de force through the mind of teenage girls who do no worry about boundaries, grades, school or the future. They are at the same time both women and children but their behaviours are fully adult and at times rather.... too adult. As they mix vodka and Happy Meals, school uniforms and piercings, the reader gets a unique peek into that teenage girl world.

When I first read this book, I was the same age as the girls in the book and I have grown up with them, in a sense. It is also one of those books that shaped my interest in literary fiction because this book is not an easy read. Warner's girls speak in Scottish dialect and the first time I read it in original language, I did have to look up a few words to suss out the meaning of the strong dialect. Technically, I find that the strength of the book is in the characters. Each character has a distinct story and a distinct set of values and beliefs. The differences between the girls are the catalysts for interesting tensions that make this novel rise above so many other books. It is an outstanding book, don't deprive yourself of it.

Read it if: You can... the dialect can be a challenge. Otherwise try finding it on audiobook. It is a unique reading/listening experience.

For other reviews of "The Sopranos", try:

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