The Help |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
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.
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Customer Reviews:
• A Brave Book With Richly Illustrated Characters
17 March, 2010
"The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings." ~Kate Chopin; The Awakening
All I could think about as I was reading this book is this author sure is brave. A white woman writing a book about black maids and prejudice in the heart of Mississippi just seemed risky to me. How can a white person possibly relate to what a black person experienced in the sixties? And yet Kathryn Stockett pulls it off beautifully.
The Help is definitely a character driven book. All the principal characters are richly illustrated and memorable. The book follows two black maids, Aibileen and Minny who have worked their whole lives serving white families. There are ups and downs to the job but in many ways the women are treated like slaves. It is also about a white woman named Skeeter, who loves to write and seems to be the only white person that notices the injustices the black maids face on a daily basis. Miss Hilly, is the antihero and is just a terrible person. I have to imagine that the actresses in Hollywood will be clamoring for that part as she is the most sinister villain in recent history. Who knew that a housewife could be so conniving?
Skeeter works with Aibileen, Minny, and other maids to document the life of a black maid in Mississippi. The stories they share are dangerous and ultimately could be life threatening if they are discovered to be the source. There is a sense of dread that builds and builds throughout the book. The book is full of mysteries that slowly unravel and I found it hard to put down. I was surprised that I enjoyed this book so much since nearly all the characters are women and for the most part the men are all terrible or just in the background. I am not the target audience but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book.
I was born in the mid-seventies and grew up for the most part in the Kansas City area and I just haven't witnessed prejudice first hand. I can't believe this story took place just a decade before my birth. I recognize that this book is fiction and I may be naive but I am sure that many real events took place that were a lot worse than some of the things that took place in this book. The author does a great job of weaving in actual civil liberty events that were occurring as the fictional story progresses. It is hard for me to fathom such hatred and ignorance. I recognize that prejudice exists today, especially in certain pockets of the country, but the fact that we have an African-American president shows that we have come a long way as a society in the last 50 years. Hopefully things continue to improve.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Page Turner
17 March, 2010
I loved this book,it was a fast read. The individual characters were interesting and perhaps realistic.
I think some people still do treat people the way the southern women did,and attitudes may not have changed as much as I would like them too.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Reality
18 March, 2010
What a wonderfully profound book. I am amazed that this is the author's first book! I cried, laughed, and angered throughout it's 400 pages. I caught myself laughing out loud while reading, and then just remembering passages throughout the day! It is a very sad depiction of racial relations during the civil rights movements in Mississippi. It is a story of strong women, both black and white. I will recommend it to all my friends...
- Amazon Customer Review
• Brilliant Writing
16 March, 2010
This novel does a wonderful job of capturing the relationships between white and black women in the Jim Crow era South. We see the combination of hardship, discrimination, affection and hypocricy that characterized life and race relations in that time and location. Perhaps best of all,the three main characters come to life through remarkably strong and original voices that gain the readers' empathy. This is one fo the best novels I've read in months.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Amazing.
17 March, 2010
This is easily the best book I have read in a long time. I had never heard or it, it was not recommended to me, and I did not see it at Borders. I just happened across it on Amazon and decided to take a gamble on an "unknown". I read this book in 2 days, and was overwhelmed by the amount of feelings it conjures up. This is a great time period novel, and I will be recommending it to all my friends.
- Amazon Customer Review
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