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.
Published: 10th February 2009
Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books
Goodreads : Click here
Series or Stand-Alone: Stand-Alone
Source: Owned
MY REVIEW
Words cannot really express how much I loved this book, but I'll try! As an unusual move for me, I actually watched the movie before reading the book and in some ways I am glad that I did and in some ways I am sad that I didn't read the book first. I loved the movie, having watched it a couple of years back and when I found this edition at a charity shop I just had to buy it, just look at the cover. It's so pretty! I had remembered watching the movie and loved it so I just had to read the book too!
The story in the book is pretty much the same as the movie, from my recollection but I would have to re-watch the movie to confirm that which I have yet to do but definitely will do soon! This story was split into the different perspectives of Miss Skeeter, who is white and wants to be a writer. She has a great set of morals and believes that the racial split in their town is unjust. You then have Aibileen who is a black maid who has had been doing that style of job for many years and excels at it. You see her excel at looking after a little girl in the family that she works for but also see her being treated very badly by that same family. You then have Minny who is also a black maid but has a lot of bad luck at the beginning. Minny is a very feisty but loveable character that I could not help but hope that all works out for her in this story.
This book was so engrossing and so real that every time I picked up this book to read I felt that I was there right in the middle of what was happening at the time. Seeing how mean some people can be made me mad. Seeing how some people rise up and be better made me happy. This is such an amazing read, if you haven't read it yet you need to!!!
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