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.

---

Articles from the New York Times

Book Review

---

Customer Reviews

Good intentions; poor execution

Rating

I struggled with this book from the very first pages because of the horrible mis-handling of Southern African-American vernacular. My next struggle was with editorial lapses such as proper placement of cultural and historical references, but overall, I get the book and its intention to show the common humanity of the characters, but I felt offended by an author who didn't or couldn't create 3-dimensional characters as I understand them.

It surprised me that this book made it to the bestseller list. To me, it seemed weak in its character and story development. I think though that readers who rated this book highly are typically people looking to understand a culture or viewpoint with which they are unfamiliar and this book made that culture/viewpoint accessible even if it's not a depiction that rings true to those of us who come out of the culture.

Further on the topic of vernacular, I found it noteworthy that only the Black characters in the book spoke in a vernacular even though various Southern dialects are well known and widely used in literature of and about the South. The way that language was used just made me cringe. 'Law', please save me from an author who seems to have stumbled upon two or three elements of speech and then repeated them ad naseaum.

I did not enjoy reading this book and I definitely did not feel that it was a fully dimensional charcterization of African American domestic workers but I appreciate that it creates the opportunity for dialogue.

---

It grabbed me and never let me go!

Rating

I was raised in the north in the late fifties and sixties. We did not have "help". I was apparently very naive. I loved this book and loved the all the women in the book. Even the mean ones. The book was so good and I wish everyone young and old would read it.

---

It was just OK

Rating

The Help was an OK book. I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it, so I guess rating it "I liked it" had to suffice.

The dialogue bothered me in the beginning, but I got used to it. The story had an interesting premise; however, I really thought the characters in the book were extremely stereotypical. That ended up bothering me the further I progressed in the book, and even more after I finished it.

I'm not sorry I read it, but I don't think I would recommend it to others.

---

Isalikesthis

Rating

I loved this book! It made me wish like I could be part of the story myself. ¢¾

---

The Help by Kathryn Stockten

Rating

This book was difficult to put down. The second day, I did go to sleep until I finished it. Our book club is reviewing it this week and so far all of the members are already raving about it.

---