The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
Pages: 534
Published by Berkley Publishing Group
Originally Published on February 10th 2009
Other Titles: None
My Rating: 5/5 stars
My Grade: A+

Summary: (From Goodreads)
 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.

My Review:
The Help was a fantastically written novel with tons of depth and strong characters. I know this is technically not a YA novel, but it's something that's great for anybody around 12+ to read. This is definitely one of my favorite books. (The above loved it, above five stars type of favorites.)

I was incredibly impressed with the characters. Our three narrators, Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter were all incredibly entertaining and unique individuals. They weren't the only interesting characters, though I loved hearing all three of their opinions; characters such as Cecilia, Hilly and Elizabeth were well fleshed-out and characters with colorful personalities. The characters were an amazing part of the Help and what really made up the novel for me.

The Help is about racism and segregation in the sixties and I was impressed by how Kathryn Stockett made it seem so authentic. I wanted to scream out loud about how unfair the whole situation was. It really brough this question into my mind: why did this even start? Why does this world have to be so unfair? There were so many times that I felt like crying (and a few times that I did.) But this book is also so full of love; how it can show through the cracks no matter what. Call me Queen of Sentimental, but it's the truth. The Help was so full of brief spells of love, as well as many other emotions, which made it the type of book it was,



I wish I could write a lot more about this book. But this is such an amazing book, you have to read it on your own to really appreciate it. It's so amazing that it deserves a crazy-rant review, but I just can't sum it up because it is so phenomenal. But please read it.