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.
The HelpMarch 12, 2010 Lisa(Mpls, MN) I loved this book. It was informational about the 1960s in the South. So well written from the perspectives of different people. I can't wait to lend it out to everyone I know.
Excellent bookMarch 12, 2010 AJB(Mississippi) This is an excellent book. You do not have to be from the south to appreciate it. Yes, this did happen and it was how people were treated.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR!March 12, 2010 Bookbabe14 Anyone who has a heart cannot help but be moved by this book. Taking place in the 1960's South, the author manages to take on the voice of both Skeeter, a young white upper class woman, as well as the black maids that she writes about. As different as the women are, the author reminds us of their similarities as women.
When Skeeter begins a secret project to interview and write about the plight of the black maids, she is met by resistance from white women in her circle as well as the maids themselves, who fear that talking about their situation can cost them their jobs and worse. The reader gets the feeling that these women are actually people that we know.
Interestingly, the author is a product of the South and was raised by a black maid, Demetrie. The author indeed writes about what she knows and her one regret is not asking Demetrie what her life was like before she died. Hence...this wonderful book!
Better as "The Boss Ladies"March 12, 2010 CM(St. Louis, MO USA) Even though I enjoyed the book, and felt that the author had the best of intentions, I could not keep out of my mind the notion that the entire premise was hypocritical. If the same book had embraced that it was told from Skeeter's perspective, not that of the "help" at all, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
A Must Read!March 11, 2010 Susan Potter Wood(New London, CT) After sitting on my shelf for months I picked up The Help last Saturday and couldn't put it down. What a wonderful read. As a new bride in the early 70's I lived in central Mississippi for a few months. Being from New England I did not understand nor could I condone some of the things that happened.I appreciated the insider's peak at a world filled with the antiquated traditions and stereotypes of the South.
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