By difficult reads, I don’t mean that these books contain hard words to understand. I mean they discuss very difficult topics such as abuse in all its forms.
Precious (Based on the novel Push) – Sapphire
This is the novel the Academy-nominated movie was based on. Precious is an obese teenager who has two children by her father. She has been severely abused (mentally, physically, and sexually) by her parents. She is desperate to rise above her lot in life, but just as you think she will do it, something else happens to her.
I found this book difficult to read because the abuse started so young and is graphically depicted. I would recommend this book only to senior students.
Slave: My True Story – Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis
Mende was a happy thirteen year old Sudanese girl when she was kidnapped from her mountain village by Arab raiders, raped, and then sold into slavery in Khartoum. Thus begins her seven years of enslavement, which ultimately ended when she was sent to work for a diplomat working in London.
Mende is a courageous woman who writes about her enslavement frankly and honestly. You can’t help but want to cheer her on and then help free modern-day slaves. This is a story of great courage and one I feel people need to read.
thinandbeautiful.com – Liane Shaw
When a doctor advises Maddie that she needs to start watching what she eats, Maddie takes this as confirmation that she needs to lose a lot of weight. While researching weight loss methods, she comes across a pro-anorexia website – thinandbeautiful.com. She then becomes friends with the Girls Without Shadow, and quickly loses her read friends. When her parents finally decide to send her to rehab, Maddie must confront her problem, and in the form of a diary, must trace how she ended up in rehab.
This book was difficult to read as I cannot really understand the mind of an anorexic girl. It wasn’t until a tragedy happens that Maddie actually makes her realize that teenage girls aren’t supposed to be less than 80 lbs.
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