Editorial Review:

Product Description:
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.

I would recommend this book. Very interesting historical fiction. It was eye opening to me. Quick read and one I did not want to put down.

Average Rating:

Rating: - Interesting
I would recommend this book. Very interesting historical fiction. It was eye opening to me. Quick read and one I did not want to put down.

Rating: - Thoughtful
One of the most thoughtful books since "To Kill a Mockingbird". Set in a small town in the Deep South this book explores the race relations of it's time. I found the book to be interesting, funny, and sad all at the same time. Each character is developed in a way to make you think. I truly enjoyed this book. A must read!

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Rating: - Lovely!
What a wonderful story! So funny, so moving. Everyone in my book club loved it and it generated plenty of discussion.

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Rating: - Wonderful and thought-provoking
This book was truly wonderful. Set in 1960s Mississippi, it's the story of white society women and the black maids they employ. All sides of the relationship are explored, good and bad. In a lot of ways the domestics were just a small step above house slaves.

It's told in three different voices - Aibileen, an older maid; Minny, a hot-tempered maid who has trouble keeping quiet and Skeeter, a Junior Leaguer who doesn't fit in with her circle of high-society friends. This book had quite a bit of humor in it too; it was just fantastic all around.

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Rating: - Review of The Help
Most of the time when I reach for a book that is earning high praise from critics and professional book reviewers I flinch a little inside and begin with not a small amount of trepidation. Why? Because most of the time the books fail to live up to the hype.

And so I put off reading The Help. I put it off for quite some time and honestly, I still would be putting it off if I hadn't, on a whim, decided, what the hell, I might as well give it a shot.

The first page had me hooked and I've carried this book around with me all day long today, inhaling it like it was a huge box of chocolates and I couldn't eat them fast enough.

I'm sure by now you know what this is a story about. 1960's Mississippi dealing with segregation and the struggle to define a love/hate relationship between women and their "help" during that time period. The main three characters in this book nearly pop off the pages with their personalities and boy, the "villains", those selfish, horrible women who have types that are still around today, they personify the worst of what any of us could be.

I cried and laughed and grieved my way through this novel. I was, in turn, horrified by the injustice of the acts being described and uplifted by the attitudes displayed. There are no saints here, there's no need to be. Just pure, human emotions. Mistakes made, happy moments shared and throughout the entire book there is this gripping feeling of suspense that has you racing toward the end to learn the fates of the women you began to fall in love with at the beginning.

This is a story that will not disappoint you. If you are hesitant, like I was, take the leap. I'm glad I did.

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