Push
by Sapphire
★ Top 5 book of 1996 · #4 on Best Books of 1996
Precious Jones is a sixteen-year-old Harlem girl who cannot read and has been ignored by everyone around her. When a determined teacher enters her life, she learns to write about her experience and claim it as her own.
Best for: Readers ready for a hard-hitting story of education, survival and finding a voice
Push is #4 on BookWard's Best Books of 1996, out of 38 1996 books that cleared our data bar.
What Push is about
Harlem, 1987. Claireece Precious Jones is sixteen, cannot read or write, and is pregnant for the second time. She lives with a mother who abuses her, and the father of her child is her own father. Few people in her life have ever expected anything of her.
Then she is placed in a small alternative school, where a teacher named Ms. Blu Rain asks the students to keep daily journals. Precious starts putting words on the page, and the writing slowly changes: her spelling and grammar improve, and she finds poetry. Books by Black women writers, The Color Purple among them, show her that her own story can be told. Sapphire's debut novel is raw and often hard to read, but it follows a girl finding her voice, and it is hopeful in the end. It was later filmed as Precious.
Push on the Best Books of 1996
Push came out in 1996. Of the 38 books first published in 1996 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #4 on our Best Books of 1996 list.
Why it made the list: 1,099 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (19 ratings); 42 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
It earns Being read right now.
Nearby on the 1996 list
- The Green Mile Stephen King, #2
- Forbidden Knowledge Roger Shattuck, #3
- Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk, #5
- Neverwhere Neil Gaiman, #6
See all Best Books of 1996 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 1995 Best Books of 1997.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 1,021 want to read it, 42 are reading it now and 36 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 3.9 out of 5 from 19 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 95 | 55% |
| Reader love | 39 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 92 | 20% |
Questions about Push
When was Push published?
Push by Sapphire was first published in 1996.
Was Push one of the best books of 1996?
Push is #4 on BookWard's Best Books of 1996, out of 38 1996 books that cleared our data bar. 1,099 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (19 ratings); 42 are reading it right now.
Why is Push on the Best Books of 1996 list?
1,099 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (19 ratings); 42 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 1996
- A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin, #1
- The Green Mile Stephen King, #2
- Forbidden Knowledge Roger Shattuck, #3
- Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk, #5
- Neverwhere Neil Gaiman, #6
- Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace, #7
See the full Best Books of 1996, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
Find your own best books
Add what you have read, rate it, and BookWard will recommend what to read next.
Free while in beta. No credit card needed.