The Help

What an amazing book! I wasn't even half way through the book and I was already giving it 5 stars!

This book is about Mississippi in the 1960's where a white woman Skeeter Phelan decides she wants to write a book about the black maids and the families they take care of. I mention black and white because in the 60's and in the south you just couldn't escape that. This book was full of emotion, truth, struggles, sadness and happiness, EVERYTHING!

The book was so much more than depicting racial tensions. The book was about friendships, women and their struggles, families, love, respect, and power. In the end you walk away feeling more appreciative of the people who take care of families like maids, nannies, and any domestic help. To know that they are helping to raise children that are not their own while sacrificing raising their own children or to know that they are constantly worried about doing the right/wrong thing because so much is not really up to them yet so powerful in their level of influence...

My review will never do this book any justice. I recommend it to everyone. I had this in audio-book form and instantly felt that I should be reading it instead. I had my son and my nieces listening to it as well. They enjoyed the book too! I wasn't born in the 60's but know what it could have been like because often times I've experienced racism and some of what Skeeter went through with her friends. My son doesn't even have a clue. I think its important to live as equals but I think it's equally important to always remember what it was like.

Dang, loved, loved, loved this book!

After hearing great things about the movie, I decided to check out the book first. Such a great story! It was eye-opening to think that the reality presented in the novel very well could have been the realities of people living in our nation just 50 years ago. I love the characters of Miss Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny and Celia Foote. There were a lot of funny moments integrated into the book well, especially considering the weight of the topics being addressed. The transformation of character is clear for many of the individuals in the book - some for the better, a couple for the worse. The Help was such a good read and was hard to put down.

The story is about three women: Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny. Each told their side of the story and life they lived from 1962 all the way to sometimes in late 1964. It was set in a small town of Mississipi, located near Jackson. It was a repressive time and it showed in the book.

One of the things that I was hung up on the first few pages was the way some of the writing was written. It was written in a deep southern tone and some words were not even proper english. So at one point I even had to say some out loud. But it was worth it because it kept the nature of the book true in tone.

My favorite part is when everything pulls together for the three main characters. As it happens things get set in motion and unraveling, for the good and bad of their town. But without the book, nothing would have changed and that I liked. It pushed boundaries that needed to be shoved and looked at closer. Something that was true in that time period in the south with freedom marches, Martin Luther King Jr., and the culture that faced all people of that minority.

There are some people who would disagree, saying that the book isn't representing things in true form. But I feel the opposite. I connected to it in such a huge way. My grandmother had a maid, who was black for over 30 years. She may have lived in New Jersey, but the point is my mother grew up having a black maid around the house. I've even met the women when my grandmother had passed away. My grandmother loved her and grounds keeper (also of the same minority). They both got compensated in her will. I think that since it was in the north, it wasn't as bad. But it's still an example of how I believe this book stayed on course and kept true in nature to the situations back then.

I feel this book is great for anyone who grew up in that time and actually lived knowing of having help in the house that wasn't white. It'll ring very true to home. I also feel this book is a great way for the younger generation to maybe understand a little deeper at what our country went through during those times.

Overall, I loved this book to no end. It's officially one of my top 10 favorites and will always have a special place in my heart.

Everyone should read this book at least once.

My mother gave me this book to read month's ago. I didn't get a chance to read it until recently. Although I wanted to finish it before I saw the movie based on the book, I only got half way through. I almost always prefer a book to a movie, and this one was no different. However, I believe the changes made for the movie were appropriate.

The book has graphic details which many people don't know or forget about the South during the civil rights movement. The characters in the book are detailed so I could picture their faces, cry with their drama and laugh at their quirkiness. The detail of some of the events scared me at times. Some also made me sad, and happy, and angry.

This is a great book which touches on just enough of the issues of the period, and also allows us to see the hope, fear, and misunderstandings from both sides. I was cheering for the “Help” the entire book.

Although we've come a long way since this time, there is still much prejudice today.

Read this book to get a glimpse into the life of high society Southern citizens and their servants during the early 1960's.

OK admittedly I did get into the story and I kept reading to find out what other improbable things were going to happen. But as I read I could not stop being annoyed by the book's propagation of racist ideas. Like. Why did all of the white Southern characters speak in perfect English but even the most educated black characters speak in dialect? And also, all 10+ issues that tarnish the Help are true.

I mean I get why people are getting into this feel-good story of a white lady helping some black ladies. It's a feel good story, for white ladies!!

Also here is a GChat conversation I had with Emilia about this book.

me: have you read the help

Emilia: no
no and NEVER
i will kill it

me: yeah i just read it just to keep up with the hype or whatever
kind of wish i hadn't though because now when people talk about it i blurt out “that shit was mad racist yo”
which is alienating.

Emilia: yeah but
YO TRUE

I finished it! Sweet. What a great book. I loved it. Now I need to go see the movie.

A good story. Really makes you feel like you are the heat of the race relations during that time period. Looking forward to seeing it translated into the movie.

simply one of the best books ive read in a while. i hope the movie does it justice!!

Loved it AGAIN! A wonderfully written historical fiction.

Well written with well developed characters - those I loved and those I loved to hate.

I had very low expectations going into this one–and was pretty much reading it only to placate my wife and mother. I expected a slow, dry and drab book about the woes of domestic help under the oppressive thumb of racism; overwritten, overly-sentimental, impressed with its own importance and appealing primarily to Oprah viewers.Yeah, I can be snob, what's your point?This is a book with zing–I couldn't believe how quickly I read it, there's a lot of life to Stockett's language and it carries you right through. And while no one could confuse this for a comedy, it's very funny–laugh out loud funny in a couple of instances. The laughs being rooted in–and surrounded by–tragedy serve to make this feel realistic, this could be a non-fiction work and it'd be fairly believable.I tired early on of the novel reminding me over and over that these women were “brave” and doing something “important” and “dangerous.” Eventually Stockett stopped telling me that, and showed me their bravery and why what they were doing was important and dangerous–and that's when the novel really took off. But that's really my only quibble.It'd have been very easy to make the characters into cookie-cutter racists, black-hearted villains with no redeeming qualities, wholly bent on oppression of their servants. But The Help avoids that. The “worst” character is just a horrid person–and she'd be a horrid person if she appeared in book about the travails of au pairs in the Hamptons rather than a book about the struggles of black housekeepers. Conversely, the heroines here aren't paragons of virtue–they are flawed, they are frightened they are ruled by their society, too (just not as much as other people are). This is a very, very good book that deserves to be read (and will reward the reader in turn), and deserves most of the accolades it's getting. No, it's not nearly as good as [b:To Kill A Mockingbird 2657 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1234606708s/2657.jpg 3275794], despite what the endorsements may say–but that's okay, very few books are, and that shouldn't detract from how wonderful a book this is.

I was kind of torn by this book. I had low expectations from the beginning – I was discomfited by the dialect, my northern-identity politicking-liberal arts sensitivities were a little appalled at a white woman writing this book and Skeeter read like an obvious self-insertion character.

That being said, I warmed up quickly. Stockett has clearly done a lot of research, in addition to having grown up in Mississippi with a maid. She is honest, at time brutally so, without taking a clear side. She depicts white people who do terrible things while being well-meaning, white people who have a lot of ingrained racism and are striving to be better and those who aren't. She has white characters who have grown up in poorer circumstances and are trying to fit in. She has African-American characters who pander to their white employers and those who hold their ground and those who have their own ingrained notions. My only complaint from a character development stand point is the completely villainous portrayal of Hilly – she's easy to hate in a novel that's supposed to be about realistic people in a toxic setting.

Kathryn Stockett did an amazing job in writing her first novel. I was very touched by the three women who are showcased in this book and the lives they tried to live back in the civil rights era. I sadly have to admit I'm not ver versed in the civil rights history but this book has really opened my eyes and has set a fire in me to look into my roots. This is a book that I'll always keep close to my heart and I'll make sure to pass it on to as many people as I can.

I really didn't care for the choice to use dialect for one of the characters, and the book touched on a little bit of Nice White Lady syndrome. It wasn't as bad about that as I feared it might be at the beginning, though. The dialect, though. Man.

I loved reading this book. After discussing it with skeptical a skeptical friend, I have to admit that the activity driving the plot is unrealistic. But that doesn't matter to my review - what's compelling about this book is that it tells a unique story about the complicated feelings of love and hate between white families and their black domestic help in the midcentury South.

I stayed up especially late tonight to read the rest of this book. I am stunned by the voices and depth of character in this book. Skeeter, Minny, and Aibileen are all so richly developed and interesting. I can hear and imagine the houses they live in and the work they do. It's rare to read a book with such detailed descriptions that telling—but at the same time, not overly verbose.

This was an excellent book it really made me look at the world the way another person would see it.
The only thing that was difficult for me was that there are some crude descriptions of male genitalia that area a little disturbing.

Definitely one of my favorite reads of 2010.

Loved it! Wonderful story with great narration from all the characters. I have read some people liken it To Kill A Mockingbird and I can understand why. Read it!

Wowsers, I am on a roll with reading fabulous books lately! This is definitely one of the best books I have read this year, and would not be surprised at all if they make it into a movie very soon! The characters are wonderfully developed, the setting perfectly described, I especially enjoyed the story being told from three different perspectives, though I often hated to come to the end of each chapter! This is just such a beautiful, thought provoking powerful and interesting novel, you won't be able to put it down. A must add to your “to Read” list!

The Help is on lots of 2009 must-read lists and it appeared over and over on lists bloggers provided for me of books to read this summer.

I couldn't help myself...I had to go ahead and get it and read it.

The help is the stories of maids and housewives in the 1960's in the South told in alternating chapters. It was an uncomfortable read, at times, as I could have been a little girl listening in on the conversations of the maids or the housewives during this time. Though we only had a maid for one day (she ironed too slowly, my mom said), I feel almost certain that I've heard these words here and there. The majority of the housewives seemed to be unaware that slavery had ended and, sadly, the maids seemed likewise uninformed.

This is the kind of book I'd recommend to someone who says, “What's wrong with black America? Why can't black America get with the program?”