Here’s a rewrite of a book review I wrote on Sapphire’s ‘The Kid’ last November:
For those of you who aren’t familiar, Sapphire is the author of ‘Push’ (later reprinted as ‘Precious,’ after the movie). I read ‘Push’ back in college and even though it was at times hard to read, I read it, and I LOVED it.
‘The Kid,’ however, is a different story. As an avowed reader, I must say that 99% of the time I finish everything I read. This was a rare exception. I can’t rate this book, because I could not and did not finish it. I got through about 200 pages of this story before I literally could not force myself to read another page. I had read some of the reviews on this novel (not too good) before reading and because I was familiar with the prequel, I tried to dig into the story of Abdul, Precious’ son. The story begins with Precious’ death from AIDS and 9-year-old Abdul is sent to live in a foster home. Once in foster care, Abdul is tormented and raped by a bully. He then goes to live with Catholic priests in a home for boys, where he is treated horribly and sexually abused for another 4 years.
It doesn’t end there. At 14, we again encounter Abdul, only this time he has become the abuser. There are numerous (and very graphic) scenes of Abdul physically and sexually abusing the boys, women, and children
around him. Instead of watching a character rise out of adversity, we witness his slow descent into evil. If ‘Push’ was hope, then ‘The Kid’ is utter hopelessness and despair. At around 200 pages, I simply gave up. I just could not get into Abdul’s story.
The abandonment of my reading effort here had every thing to do with the characterization of Abdul. Despite the criticism to the contrary, I completely understand why Sapphire created such a character (a victimized, abandoned child turned psychotic teenage rapist). There is nothing ya’ll (and I mean, nothing) in Abdul’s background from the age of nine onward to suggest that he will be a good person. He is cast off and abandoned by all those around him and a victim of hellish physical and sexual abuse. Knowing that most killers and rapists and other dregs of society were themselves physically and sexually abused as children, you have to wonder what people expect when the cycle of abuse is allowed to continue. Sapphire does an excellent job of getting into Abdul’s head–the dark, scary place that it is. There are long, long, LONG passages of Abdul fantasizing about sexual assault in this book. You listen to him describe the way in which he victimizes those around him, justify it, then completely deny it, and eventually move on to another victim and feel absolutely no remorse. After 200 pages I simply could not “feel” with the despicable nature of Abdul anymore, despite his upbringing.
Also, Sapphire’s use of dream sequences and stream-of-consciousness technique at times were just plain confusing and unclear. Even after what I read there are still some portions of the book that I’m still not really sure what happened. I understand that the author wanted to keep with the feel of realism but honestly after a while the rape scenes became, in my opinion, kinda cheap and gratuitous.
Don’t buy this book. Perhaps in the future I will be able to finish, I do want to know what happens to Abdul, but not at the expense of my piece of mind at this time. So for right now this one goes back to the library.
