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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I read MANY good reviews of this novel from Entertainment Weekly to fellow reader’s blogs and beyond; but the concept of the novel kept me wary. The Help is a story written by a white woman about African American maids in the 1960’s in Mississippi . . .something seemed sacrilegious about this entire concept.

I was therefore surprised when I started to read this book and found that I couldn’t put it down. Aibileen is a black maid for a lower middle class white family. Her employer is a 22-year woman named Elizabeth who has two good friends; Hilly and Skeeter. Hilly wants to keep “coloreds” in their place, while Skeeter has other ideas. Aibileen’s sassy friend Minny has troubles keeping a job, although she is a great cook (I want to taste her Carmel cake!). She finds a job with a woman who has a secret of her own. Skeeter decides to write a book about domestics in the South with Aibileen and Minny’s help. This puts them all at great risk.

I can’t believe such a world existed . . . and that it was only 40 years ago!! How could people ever have been treated this way?

While this book was a disturbing look at racism, it was also a great story of a group of very strong women with very interesting self-stories. I really enjoyed this book and think it would perhaps make a good future book club pick!

5 comments:

  1. Thankfully things have changed, for the better, within the past 40 years. This sounds like a book I may need to read. Thanks for your review.

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  2. This book doesn't jump off the shelf at me, but I keep hearing/reading such good reviews that I'm curious.

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  3. Good morning Laura! I just loved your review on this book and put you into the Morning Menadering post. I have connected to your post here so book lovers can stop in and see what a great review you have here. :)

    You can link to the review from comment.

    Have a great morning!

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  4. The Help was so well written that the characters seemed to come to life! Thanks for sharing your views!

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  5. A friend had read this for her book club and recommended it to me. What a wonderful book. My book club is now reading it also. Easy to follow the way the chapters are titled. I'd recommend this to everyone.
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