The Help Review

Book name: The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett

 Book synopsis: 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.

Book Review: 

I really don't know what I should and should not say about this book. I finished reading it last night, and I was all happy to finally get to write a review about the book I had heard so much about. Yet, I couldn't formulate words to write, or even a thought and opinion as I finished the last pages. How does one formulate an opinion on this book easily is what I have to ask everyone who wrote a review. I had to sit down and think about this book, and what to write, what I should share with you all about this book. Well here it is:

This book touched me. It told the story of three characters, with one of them from a completely different world, but all three of them different people with different opinions. You will come to love them for who they are. Skeeter, in all her height and glory just trying to be who she wants to be. She doesn't want what other women want, but a dream and I admire her for that. Aibileen is as sweet as sugar, loves taking care of children and took good care of my heart as I fell in love with her character. Minny, our little spit fire with sass just dripping off of her. She cooks some amazing food, but is tough and that is one thing I love about her. 

The story defies many books I have read, taking place in a time during civil rights movements. During the time of Dr. King, where change was something no one wanted to see or be a part of in Jackson Mississippi. Yet, change did come and it was something I really loved about this book. Even when everyone and everything around them fought them tooth and nail, they did what they felt had to be done and that is to be greatly admired. 

What i really liked about this book, was well there were a lot of things. I fell in love with the main characters, who they were and what they stood for. The plot kept me on my toes, when everything seemed to be going okay it didn't take long for life to squeeze the lemon juice in their eyes. When they happened they kept pushing on, when life knocked them down seven times they got back up eight. 

The bad: 

Sometimes this book can get to be a little too emotional for me to fully grasp what is going on. There are other times that the plot twists in tad confusing ways but once the part was reread it made more sense. Some characters could use a little more development. They were just kind of there, and you wanted to know more about them but not much information was offered.

Favorite Quotes:

"'One day, a wise Martian come down to Earth to teach us people a thing or two' I say.

'Martian? How big'

'Oh, he about six-two'

'What's his name?'

'Martian Luther King"

"'Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?'

'I don't know. I don't think so,' I sobbed. ...

'You gone have to ask yourself Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?'"

All in all:

This book is very touching, heart warming and allows you to see things in a different life. It reminds us of a time where we were not one people, where people of darker skin were looked down upon and degraded. It is reminder of what our fellow man before us fought for, and tells us not to take what we have for granted. Imagine being a maid in a time like that and losing your job forever? It may seem painful, but you have to remember that those times are gone. It has to remembered the sacrifices made in the past, to make for a better tomorrow. This book was everything I thought it would be, wanted it to be, and more. You will not be disappointed.