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I remember when Push by Sapphire was published. It was the late 90’s and I heard how riveting the book was. I tried to read this book, but I couldn’t. It was just too “raw.” Too much. I put it down and didn’t pick it up again.

So, here it is. Ten years later and I finished reading PUSH this weekend. Again, it was a hard book to read. Very disturbing and heartbreaking. But also shows how the main character, despite all the obstacles, never gave up.

So what made me decide to finally finish this book? First, I must admit it is because of the movie, Precious, which is based on the novel. Plus, writer friends like Jeannine Montgomery, wrote raves about it. But I think what made me really want to give this book another try was looking at two recent interviews with the author.

Borders Media has an interview with the author and she said some things that really struck me. I’m paraphrasing but Sapphire says that Precious was stunted in language so it was hard and painful for her to verbalize her thoughts (hence the wording and dialect in the book), but at the end, she “owned” her language. The language that had defined her as less was now hers to define herself as whole. The author’s goal was not to portray Precious as someone to pity but as someone to empathize.

The author is also in another interview @Katie Couric. In this interview, Sapphire talks about the seeds of the novel idea as well as the journey to the movie screen. I thought the interview was enlightening and it also gave me more insight to what the author was trying to achieve.

Was the book still hard to read? Absolutely. It brings home to me the effect of how parenting and education can affect a child’s life and opportunities. Some children are given some terrible circumstances to endure. Some of them make it. And some of them do not.

Now ten years later, it’s almost surreal that Sapphire and I share the same agent. I have been affected by this book in a way that I’m still trying to comprehend. I plan to go see this movie, and I know it will be difficult. But if there was one lesson that I learned from this book is that sometimes you must push. Push through the circumstances, push through the difficulty, push through the obstacles to get to the other side.