The Help

Yesterday I finished a wonderful book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett! I have done lots of leisurely reading this summer, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but I have to get started in the other sections of my 2009 book list. I highly recommend this book though. It is a great leisure read and absolutely hilarious!  I laughed out loud so many times in this book that I would have to stop and tell others the story. It is so funny! This is Stockett's first novel, but I will definitely be reading the next one. The Help is set in Jackson, MS (this is where I am from, so I loved reading about the history of the town) in 1962, and tells the story of the relationships between several white families and their black maids. Here is my favorite paragraph from the book, but that is all I will share because I really want you to read it:

"But for the past two weeks, I've had a secret joy and a secret dread both rattling inside a me that make waxing floors go even slower and washing underwear a uphill race. Ironing pleats turns into a eternity, but what can you do. We all pretty sure nothing's gone be said about it right at first. Just like Miss Stein told Miss Skeeter, this book ain't gone be no best-seller and to keep our "expectations low." Miss Skeeter say maybe don't spec nothing at all, that most Southern peoples is "repressed." If they feel something, they might not say a word. Just hold they breath and wait for it to pass, like gas.

Minny say, "I hope she hold her breath till she explode all over Hinds County." She mean Miss Hilly. I wish Minny was wishing for change in the direction a kindness, but Minny is Minny, all the time." --Aibileen

Below are two reviews about the book:

"The perfect timing of a natural-born storyteller...Stockett's characters, both white and black, are so fully fleshed they practically breathe. I'm becoming an evangelist for The Help. Don't miss this wise and astonishing debut." 

 --Joshilyn Jackson, bestselling author of Gods in Alabama

"I love The Help. Kathryn Stockett has given us glorious characters and a powerful, truth-filled story. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter show that people from this troubled time came together despite their differences and that ordinary women can be heroic."

--Jill Conner Browne, bestselling author of the Sweet Potato Queen series