Stunning

Precious Jones is 16 and living a hard life. Her mother beats her, verbally abuses her and sexually abuses her. To make matters worse her father has sexually abused Precious since she was a young girl, and she has had one child by him. Precious isn't very good in school, in fact she can't read and is in junior high school when she should be in twelfth grade.

Unable to excel where she is an administrator decides to send Precious to another school. This is where she meets Ms. Rain, a teacher who will help her learn.

The story is raw and gritty and does not hold back from showing the horrors of this young woman's life. The language is intense, the actions of some of the characters are both shocking and horrifying. Just when you think nothing worse can happen to Precious it does.

I should note that there are misspellings in this book. This did throw me off at first, but then I was able to get into the rhythm of the story. For instance " fahver" is father and "ninfe grade" is ninth grade.

This is a great book for students to read. It will make them think. The language may scare some teachers/librarians away but I think this book needs to be in a library's collection.