The Help

I was kind of torn by this book. I had low expectations from the beginning – I was discomfited by the dialect, my northern-identity politicking-liberal arts sensitivities were a little appalled at a white woman writing this book and Skeeter read like an obvious self-insertion character.

That being said, I warmed up quickly. Stockett has clearly done a lot of research, in addition to having grown up in Mississippi with a maid. She is honest, at time brutally so, without taking a clear side. She depicts white people who do terrible things while being well-meaning, white people who have a lot of ingrained racism and are striving to be better and those who aren't. She has white characters who have grown up in poorer circumstances and are trying to fit in. She has African-American characters who pander to their white employers and those who hold their ground and those who have their own ingrained notions. My only complaint from a character development stand point is the completely villainous portrayal of Hilly – she's easy to hate in a novel that's supposed to be about realistic people in a toxic setting.

I absolutely loved this book! I must admit I was a little uncomfortable with the stereotypes and a lot of the language used, mostly because it's coming from a white author, but I realise that was necessary and realistic and it really got the point across and I think Stockett did a surprisingly good job considering.

One complaint that I have is that I feel as if the one white character took up a lot of space. I understand how important Skeeter was to the plot and I really liked her but I do feel her chapters were much longer than Minny's and Aibileen's and were filled with a lot of unnecessary information.

But I have to commend Stockett for the story and the characters she brought to life. I was so invested in absolutely every character, even the evil ones! I loved Minny, she was easily my favourite! I especially loved her smart mouth, how courageous she was, the way she looked after everyone in spite of herself, and the way she cared about Celia in her own way really warmed my heart.

Aibileen was the heart and soul of the story. The way she helped garner maids for Skeeter, when both she and Minny encouraged Skeeter to go to New York, the way she looked after and encouraged Mae-Mobley and the affirmations she would recite to her daily, and the way she handled Minny and really understood her. I loved their friendship the most of all.

Skeeter was great too, even though I do believe she had selfish reasons of writing the book in the beginning. As the story went on you could really tell how she came to free herself of earlier thinking, I loved when she saw how nasty Hilly was and questioned why she was ever friends with someone like that and I loved when Skeeter had a moment of clarity and truly understood what her own book was about.

And I loved seeing Ms Hilly backed into a corner by the scheming done by the trio, especially Minny, I do wish I got to see more of a comeuppance for her but in the real world I know that wouldn't happen and I appreciate that things were done realistically.

I like to believe in my hearts of hearts that after the open ending everything went well for Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter and for my own sanity I will ignore everything that says otherwise.

I was conflicted

I really didn't care for the choice to use dialect for one of the characters, and the book touched on a little bit of Nice White Lady syndrome. It wasn't as bad about that as I feared it might be at the beginning, though. The dialect, though. Man.

I loved reading this book. After discussing it with skeptical a skeptical friend, I have to admit that the activity driving the plot is unrealistic. But that doesn't matter to my review - what's compelling about this book is that it tells a unique story about the complicated feelings of love and hate between white families and their black domestic help in the midcentury South.

I stayed up especially late tonight to read the rest of this book. I am stunned by the voices and depth of character in this book. Skeeter, Minny, and Aibileen are all so richly developed and interesting. I can hear and imagine the houses they live in and the work they do. It's rare to read a book with such detailed descriptions that telling—but at the same time, not overly verbose.

A good story. Really makes you feel like you are the heat of the race relations during that time period. Looking forward to seeing it translated into the movie.

The Help was in my TBR for so long and finally, I read it.
I personally love anything with a female protagonist, keeping my biased side aside there is a lot to like in this book, from characters to the storyline.
It's about the time when colored people were not slaves but still fighting for an equal place in society.
the story revolves around two colored women who were serving white families and a White girl who had a close relationship with her Maid decided to write a book about the Maids.
this starts the friendship, shows the struggles and emotions of a person who is asked to use a different toilet based their color.

Very good story, great characters. Was a very interesting look at a difficult subject.

This has been on my ‘to be read' pule for a very long time. The Help is probably one of my favourite movies so I had really big expectations for this book.

It's one of those books that I believe will think about for a very long time. I really enjoyed this and can't find the words to properly articulate my thoughts and feelings on it so I am just going to say that I will definitely revisit this in the future.

I rated the book based on my enjoyment of the story and it did touch on some uncomfortable truths, like any book about race should. But, I felt really iffy about the fact that it was written by a white woman. In the acknowledgments, she basically admits that no research was done to get any perspective from anyone who worked in these roles or survived the pre-civil-rights era. I think there's still a benefit to keeping these issues in the public mind regardless of the speaker, but I felt guilty about it. It's like they said about Skeeter's book, that a white woman is benefiting from the stories of black women. So, I'll now be seeking a more authentic story to round things out.

This is an entertaining and also poignant story of courage in the face of racial oppression in Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. During the Jim Crow days prior to and on the precipice of the Civil Rights movement, the black housekeepers and maids raised the children of elite white families and cleaned their houses. However, they were expected to use a separate bathroom (“Negroes carry different diseases from white people”), eat from separate dishes, and refrain from opinions on racial inequality. Crossing boundaries could lead to fines or imprisonment, or even death. It is from these indignities that “the help” are aided by a budding, brave, young white journalist named Skeeter.

Told in separate voices in alternating chapters–Abileen, Minnie (two black maids), and Skeeter–the author is able to give an unvarnished view of social injustice and the individual lives it affected in the Deep South. Through Skeeter's clandestine meetings with twelve black maids, the stories of their lives are culled covertly from in-depth interviews with these women. Over a period of several months, she sets out to complete an intrepid but protectively anonymous profile of a town and time under siege of segregation. But she took some brazen risks by including material that was specific to Jackson and its inhabitants. Skeeter plans to submit her finished book to an agent in New York, risking alienation from friends and family and even criminal prosecution if her identity (and the identity of the maids) is discovered.

I am extremely behind the times with this one because I am reading it way after all the hype has settled but I loved it. if you read the authors note at the end of the book then you know that the author had a maid she was very close to, and that wraps the story up even tighter for me. I love authors who can make something so relatable that I can not put it down.

This was an excellent book it really made me look at the world the way another person would see it.
The only thing that was difficult for me was that there are some crude descriptions of male genitalia that area a little disturbing.

I had very low expectations going into this one–and was pretty much reading it only to placate my wife and mother. I expected a slow, dry and drab book about the woes of domestic help under the oppressive thumb of racism; overwritten, overly-sentimental, impressed with its own importance and appealing primarily to Oprah viewers.Yeah, I can be snob, what's your point?This is a book with zing–I couldn't believe how quickly I read it, there's a lot of life to Stockett's language and it carries you right through. And while no one could confuse this for a comedy, it's very funny–laugh out loud funny in a couple of instances. The laughs being rooted in–and surrounded by–tragedy serve to make this feel realistic, this could be a non-fiction work and it'd be fairly believable.I tired early on of the novel reminding me over and over that these women were “brave” and doing something “important” and “dangerous.” Eventually Stockett stopped telling me that, and showed me their bravery and why what they were doing was important and dangerous–and that's when the novel really took off. But that's really my only quibble.It'd have been very easy to make the characters into cookie-cutter racists, black-hearted villains with no redeeming qualities, wholly bent on oppression of their servants. But The Help avoids that. The “worst” character is just a horrid person–and she'd be a horrid person if she appeared in book about the travails of au pairs in the Hamptons rather than a book about the struggles of black housekeepers. Conversely, the heroines here aren't paragons of virtue–they are flawed, they are frightened they are ruled by their society, too (just not as much as other people are). This is a very, very good book that deserves to be read (and will reward the reader in turn), and deserves most of the accolades it's getting. No, it's not nearly as good as [b:To Kill A Mockingbird 2657 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1234606708s/2657.jpg 3275794], despite what the endorsements may say–but that's okay, very few books are, and that shouldn't detract from how wonderful a book this is.

After hearing great things about the movie, I decided to check out the book first. Such a great story! It was eye-opening to think that the reality presented in the novel very well could have been the realities of people living in our nation just 50 years ago. I love the characters of Miss Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny and Celia Foote. There were a lot of funny moments integrated into the book well, especially considering the weight of the topics being addressed. The transformation of character is clear for many of the individuals in the book - some for the better, a couple for the worse. The Help was such a good read and was hard to put down.

Občas mi přišlo, že se autorka do AAVE trochu zamotala a byla nekonzistentní, celá ta romantická podlinka u Skeeter mi přišla zbytečná a nepochopila jsem, proč tam byla. ( Jakože když pomáháš minoritám, tak to má dopad i na tebe? idk ) Jinak moc pěkné ♥

Amaze

Loved it! Wonderful story with great narration from all the characters. I have read some people liken it To Kill A Mockingbird and I can understand why. Read it!

The Help is on lots of 2009 must-read lists and it appeared over and over on lists bloggers provided for me of books to read this summer.

I couldn't help myself...I had to go ahead and get it and read it.

The help is the stories of maids and housewives in the 1960's in the South told in alternating chapters. It was an uncomfortable read, at times, as I could have been a little girl listening in on the conversations of the maids or the housewives during this time. Though we only had a maid for one day (she ironed too slowly, my mom said), I feel almost certain that I've heard these words here and there. The majority of the housewives seemed to be unaware that slavery had ended and, sadly, the maids seemed likewise uninformed.

This is the kind of book I'd recommend to someone who says, “What's wrong with black America? Why can't black America get with the program?”

I loved EVERYTHING about this book! Would definitely recommend it to everyone ^_^

Wow!!!! This really, Really is a Powerful book, and deserves to be read by everyone!!!!

Well written with well developed characters - those I loved and those I loved to hate.

DNF @ 40%ish

I just can't bring myself to carry on with this one - it's too long, too slow and I already know what's going to happen from seeing the film so feel the intrigue is gone.

What an amazing book! I wasn't even half way through the book and I was already giving it 5 stars!

This book is about Mississippi in the 1960's where a white woman Skeeter Phelan decides she wants to write a book about the black maids and the families they take care of. I mention black and white because in the 60's and in the south you just couldn't escape that. This book was full of emotion, truth, struggles, sadness and happiness, EVERYTHING!

The book was so much more than depicting racial tensions. The book was about friendships, women and their struggles, families, love, respect, and power. In the end you walk away feeling more appreciative of the people who take care of families like maids, nannies, and any domestic help. To know that they are helping to raise children that are not their own while sacrificing raising their own children or to know that they are constantly worried about doing the right/wrong thing because so much is not really up to them yet so powerful in their level of influence...

My review will never do this book any justice. I recommend it to everyone. I had this in audio-book form and instantly felt that I should be reading it instead. I had my son and my nieces listening to it as well. They enjoyed the book too! I wasn't born in the 60's but know what it could have been like because often times I've experienced racism and some of what Skeeter went through with her friends. My son doesn't even have a clue. I think its important to live as equals but I think it's equally important to always remember what it was like.

Dang, loved, loved, loved this book!

OK admittedly I did get into the story and I kept reading to find out what other improbable things were going to happen. But as I read I could not stop being annoyed by the book's propagation of racist ideas. Like. Why did all of the white Southern characters speak in perfect English but even the most educated black characters speak in dialect? And also, all 10+ issues that tarnish the Help are true.

I mean I get why people are getting into this feel-good story of a white lady helping some black ladies. It's a feel good story, for white ladies!!

Also here is a GChat conversation I had with Emilia about this book.

me: have you read the help

Emilia: no
no and NEVER
i will kill it

me: yeah i just read it just to keep up with the hype or whatever
kind of wish i hadn't though because now when people talk about it i blurt out “that shit was mad racist yo”
which is alienating.

Emilia: yeah but
YO TRUE