The Help by Katheryn Stockett

I read the book, The Help, by Katheryn Stockett. The book centers around the writing of the book, “Help.” There are many characters in this book to describe but the two main ones are Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan and Aibleen Clark. Skeeter is a white woman who just returned from college with a degree in writing. Skeeter gets a job as a writer for the local newspaper. Aibleen is an African American lady who is the house-keeper for Skeeter’s friend, Miss Elizabeth Leefolt. Skeeter and Aibleen’s relationship starts when Skeeter gets a job at the “Jackson Journal” writing the “Miss Myrna” column, an article that gives tips on house-keeping. It doesn’t take long before Skeeter realizes that she doesn’t know a thing about housekeeping so she asks Aibleen to help her out with the column. Once Skeeter gets to know Aibleen a little better, she decides to ask Aibleen if she would help her out with the book. After a lot of convincing, Aibleen decides to do it. It took a lot of hard work and talking with other maids for Skeeter and Aibleen to finish the book. After a lot of prayer, they find out Mrs. Stien was going to publish it, but after it’s published, lots of problems occur. Will Aibleen be able to keep her job working for Miss Leefolt? Will anyone find out who the real authors of the book are?

This is hands down the best book I have ever read! Any time I wasn’t doing anything in the last month you would find me with the book in my hand trying to find out what was going to happen next. This 522 page book always kept me attached. There was always something new to look forward to no matter what part you were at. Like I said, there were many characters in this book. My least favorite was Miss Hilly Holbrook who was a friend of Skeeter’s for a while. Hilly is a horrible person and I never liked what she had to say. She thinks/thought that she knows everything and they only thing that matters is herself.

The recommended reading age for this book was not able to be found but I believe any young adult reader or over would enjoy this book. This is Stockett’s first and only book as of now. There are no awards that this book has won yet, but I bet there will be some to come in the future. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from this book, “You is smart. You is kind. You is important,” and “Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.” I would compare this author to John M. Wolf who wrote Someone Named Eva because they both chose to write fiction stories about hard periods of time in history.



Kirkus Reviews says:
The relationships between white middle-class women and their black maids in Jackson, Miss., circa 1962, reflect larger issues of racial upheaval in Mississippi-native Stockett’s ambitious first novel. Still unmarried, to her mother’s dismay, recent Ole Miss graduate Skeeter returns to Jackson longing to be a serious writer. While playing bridge with her friends Hilly and Elizabeth, she asks Elizabeth’s seemingly docile maid Aibileen for housekeeping advice to fill the column she’s been hired to pen for a local paper. The two women begin what Skeeter considers a semi-friendship, but Aibileen, mourning her son’s recent death and devoted to Elizabeth’s neglected young daughter, is careful what she shares. Aibileen’s good friend Minnie, who works for Hilly’s increasingly senile mother, is less adept at playing the subservient game than Aibileen. When Hilly, an aggressively racist social climber, fires and then blackballs her for speaking too freely, Minnie’s audacious act of vengeance almost destroys her livelihood. Unlike oblivious Elizabeth and vicious Hilly, Skeeter is at the verge of enlightenment. Encouraged by a New York editor, she decides to write a book about the experience of black maids and enlists Aibileen’s help. For Skeeter the book is primarily a chance to prove herself as a writer. The stakes are much higher for the black women who put their lives on the line by telling their true stories. Although the exposé is published anonymously, the town’s social fabric is permanently torn. Stockett uses telling details to capture the era and does not shy from showing Skeeter’s dangerous naïveté. Skeeter’s narration is alive with complexity—her loyalty to her traditional Southern mother remains even after she learns why the beloved black maid who raised her has disappeared. In contrast, Stockett never truly gets inside Aibileen and Minnie’s heads (a risk the author acknowledges in her postscript). The scenes written in their voices verge on patronizing.
This genuine page-turner offers a whiff of white liberal self-congratulation that won’t hurt its appeal and probably spells big success.

“Set in the rural South of the 1960's, THE HELP is a startling, resonant portrait of the intertwined lives of women on opposite sides of the racial divide. Stockett's many gifts – a keen eye for character, a wicked sense of humor, the perfect timing of a natural born storyteller – shine as she evokes a time and place when black women were expected to help raise white babies, and yet could not use the same bathroom as their employers. Her characters, both white and black, are so fully fleshed they practically breathe – no stock villains or pious heroines here. I'm becoming an evangelist for The Help. Don't miss this wise and astonishing debut.”
–Joshilyn Jackson, Bestselling author of Gods in Alabama
I really, really hope you read this book!!

Recommended by Sarah Kluesner