Set in Harlem in 1987, it is the story of Claireece ?Precious? Jones, a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She?s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with g