I'm not sure where I first read about The Help. I think it was a monthly recommendation in Real Simple or Good Housekeeping. Either way, after reading the synopsis I knew it was right up my alley.The synopsis:
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.
Review: I absolutely loved this book. I read it in less than a week (granted I was on vacation and had long flights) but that's a recent record. I've always been interested in Civil Rights history and even more so now that I live in the South. I loved reading each woman's individual point of view and I found Kathryn Stockett's writing very easy to read. I enjoyed how each chapter alternated between different narrators, yet demonstrated how they were clearly entwined. I didn't find the book to be preachy (I was hoping it wouldn't be) but it certainly opened my eyes to several things, including practices I never knew existed. If you're searching for a heart warming book that also has a bit of history in it, I definitely 100% recommend The Help.
***** of 5 stars
P.S. If you're waiting for the review of The Whole World Over, I'm still reading it. This one popped up at the library and having been on the wait list since August, I had to take it when I got it. After I finish The Island I'll get back to it and hopefully finish it quickly.
