The Help

Whenever I read a book that is beyond good, I hesitate to write a review about it. Mostly because I don't give much credit to my ability to be able to make it sound as good as it is, and I'm afraid that my enthusiasm will drive people away, instead of towards reading the book. That's because I've never been able to sell anything. I'm not one of those people that can schmooze you into agreeing with me, and I couldn't sell water in the desert. It's just not one of my talents.

So take that information, and then READ THIS BOOK.

It won't matter what I say about it, because it won't be enough. The Help is probably the best book I've read in a decade. It has nothing to do with entertainment, even though there were entertaining parts. It has everything to do with the powerful and emotional themes and messages in the book.

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. - http://kathrynstockett.com/stockett-synopsis.htm

I hope to see this as required reading in high schools across the country. Place this novel next to Their Eyes Were Watching God and To Kill a Mockingbird. The Help is the resurrection of the classic novel and should be read by everyone.

I was born in the south in the late 1960's, and I was tended to by a black maid from birth through around age 10. So I could see my own history in a lot of this story, although mine came a bit later and in a big Southern city, not a small town. I recall that my single mother was always kind and generous to "the help," but while reading this story I kept wondering about the maids' point of view. I suspect they were aware that my mother had a genteel sort of racism. Kind and generous, yes, but not as though to an equally worthy human being. Certainly not to a social equal.

I cringe now at the thought of giving the maids clothes and other things we no longer needed, but I'm pretty sure none of them were monogrammed or as extremely "white" in style as Hilly's clothes were! But that's something I'd never even consider offering to my current housekeeper, because I consider her my social equal. (We both might come across the others' donated goods at the local thrift store!)

I know this book was fairly controversial when it came out, but I had no issues with the use of dialect, and other than a few unlikely bits (like that Aibileen was so accepting of a gay kid), I really enjoyed it. I can see in Skeeter some of my own early embrace of the civil rights movement, despite being raised in an environment that did not reward young white southern girls for doing that. And who doesn't love Aibileen and Minny. But I also loved Celia for the way she embraced and defended Minny and never once considered emulating the League ladies in their treatment of their maids, despite how much she otherwise wanted to be like them. (And I'm glad she finally gave up on that idea!)

“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
― Kathryn Stockett, The Help


I am stingy with my rating stars and I was tough;I made it to the last chapter and that sassy, little Mae Mobley stole my heart and ran away with it. This is a moving, brave and beautiful book and the character development is just wonderful.

I loved this book! It should be required reading for everyone as it really gives a first-person account of what it meant to be both black and white in the south back before the civil rights movement. The bonus: the writing is excellent and you can't put the book down!

I wasn't sure I would like this book when I suggested it to my February book club. Still, I thought the premise sounded interesting and I convinced myself that I ought read any novel that made such a huge splash as a debut novel. Turns out, I truly enjoyed every page of Stockett's The Help. She weaves the story seamlessly, beautifully. Life in Jackson, Mississippi becomes vivid and real as I read on. Her words even brought a sense of what kind of sweltering heat people in the South must endure on those hot days.

The 60s came to life as I read about these women, as I read about their lives, their journeys, their trials, tribulations and triumphs. What a fabulous novel, carefully and wonderfully crafted. Three women and one book about the good, the bad, and the ugly relations between white women of society and their black hired help.

Stockett breathes such life into these characters. Each woman has a distinct rhythm to their speech, their own concerns, their own attitudes. This novel evoked such strong emotions within me as I read on. As the book wore on, it was more and more difficult for me to spend much time away from it as I wondered how would it all turn out. There were several times that I laughed (Minny is especially funny with her attitude and observations) and other times where my heart grew tender (a scene between Celia Foote and Minny, the scenes where Skeeter and Celia are ostracized and left out), and still others where I was tense with fear wondering whether or not these women were going to be caught and what kind of consequences would they face if they were found out.

I am so grateful that I picked up this novel, and more importantly, that some people in my book club got to experience it with me. If you haven't picked it up yet, you should consider getting yourself a copy!