In New York City's Harlem circa 1987, Claireece Precious Jones endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed. While being pregnant with her second child, both children fathered by her biological father, she is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction..