Friday, October 7, 2011

The Help - Kathryn Stockett



Summary of 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.

I heard about The Help first when I saw the commercial for the movie. Then I found out it was a book! Well now I've got to read it! I ALWAYS like to read the book before I watch the movie. For awhile I thought I wouldn't be able to do that cause I'm poor and can't afford to buy books, I go to my library. But my library has 170 holds on the book! But thanks to a friend I was able to read it!

I LOVED it! The style of writing is PHENOMENAL! I love how Kathryn has it in different perspectives. She has it as Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter. They are the main characters and she switches between their thoughts and lives. She wrote the book with such accuracy you'd think you was in the 1960's. The dialogue is different for every character.

I found myself laughing out loud almost on every page! The lives of these women are so different yet somehow they find a way to connect to each other. Through this book that "Miss" Skeeter has decided to write about black women working for white women. My favorite character has to be Minny! She's got a personality a mile wide and had me laughing the most! She's got spunk, wit and a mouth on her! Which makes even more enjoyable!

I can't wait to go see this movie! This is definitely a book I'd recommend to anybody! The only thing that's wrong with it (which can't be helped cause that's how they talked) is the language in the book.

Emily's Rating of This Book:


The next book I'll be doing is The Confidential Life Of Eugenia Cooper by Kathleen Y'Barbo. I might a little late on this cause I'm going camping this week so I might have to combine two books into one post.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Emily, I've also seen "The Help" advertisements on TV and in bookstores, and I have been curious about it. I love books that are full of humor, and I've never read any books about the social difficulties in the 1960s. I'll have to get it now! Great review!

Cathy said...

Glad you enjoyed this book! I loved it too...minus the language. :) You'll love the movie. The actors suit the characters in the book to a tee. Especially Minnie, who I loved too! Hope you get to see it soon.

Rissi said...

"The Help" movie adaptation was just great - can't wait to buy the DVD! Now, I need to get the book read (I bought it prior to seeing the film, but never did finish it).