THE HELP

Kathryn Stockett

MSRP $24.95, 464 Pages.

Published by Amy Einhorn/Putnam.

A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s ­Mississippi.

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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Articles from the New York Times

Book Review

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Customer Reviews

Civil Rights movement from an intimate perspective

Rating

The topic of Civil Rights in the U.S. is vast, complex, and ongoing. To write a fictionalized story of the impact of this movement is no small matter. Certainly an author can write about any one of numerous aspects of this movement, but Kathryn Stockett has taken a fascinating approach. In the characters in this small town, both white and black, Stockett has recreated the world that was during the Jim Crow laws and given us real insight into how real people interacted and regarded each other. It would seem that in this insular society that change would not come as quickly as it did, but the author demonstrated how little changes, little nuances, have added up to produce a major shift in society. To me this novel was not as much about the specifics of the individual characters as it was about this perceptible shift in the relations between blacks and whites.

The book was well written, the characters well drawn, and I feel she accomplished her purpose. RecommendedThe Help

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The Help

Rating

This is the best book I have read in years. Could not put it down. It was funny, unpredictable, sad and compelling all in one. Made you really feel like you were living in '60's Mississippi. makes you really see how far we have come. I hope the author has many more books to come.

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Non-stop clichés. But that's the fun of it.

Rating

Pitch perfect if you are looking for mindless entertainment, and nothing more taxing than turning pages.

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cant say enough!

Rating

katheryn stockett needs to write another one... this book made me cry at its end. a GREAT book and a GREAT read

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Pure Enjoyment

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I absolutely loved this book! I found myself laughing outloud and tearing up as well. Most books i'm thinking..."Okay this is a good book...but isn't it about time that its over?" I found myself very sad at the end of the book because it was over! I will definately be reading more of Kathern Stockett's books in the future!

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