The Help

main character: harlow thomas
the guys: lincoln black, river bettencourt, and dax and chase lauder

summary:
harlow and her mom, penelope, are moving from arizona to fox hill, connecticut for a really great job offer. harlow has resigned herself to the move because she knows it'll help her mom with the debt they've accumulated since her cancer diagnosis (which is no “free” of). harlow and her mom are going to be the housekeepers of a wealthy family. upon arrival, samuel black is friendly, but lincoln, his son, is not. as soon as her hears that they're the hired help, he does a 180. lincoln and his friends make harlow's life hard as soon as she appears in theirs, but something big and dangerous brings them a bit closer—the death of another student they go to school with. they witnessed it. the boys tell harlow they can't go to the police about it. some other stuff happens, and at the end, penelope thomas is arrested for the murder. in trying to help her mom, harlow spills that her and the boys were there, but that don't back her up. and she's once again, on the other side, far far away from them.

my thoughts:
so i really liked this a lot. normally, the first books of series, i find hard to get through cause they're a bit slow trying to build up the background and the plot, but it was well-paced. i immediately liked that harlow was a bit more relatable than some other reverse harem heroines. now don't get me wrong, i love the strong, badass, morally gray heroines as much as the next reader, but right away i liked harlow a lot. i liked that she had a best friend, had a mom she didn't hate, and had gone through something she came out of the other side of with a fairly optimistic outlook on life of. also, her being fire-y underneath a bit of shyness and anxiety endeared me to her cause i like to think i'm cool like that.