The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Hardcover, 451 pages
Published February 10th 2009 by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam

Goodreads Synopsis:
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.

I honestly didn't hear about this book until the movie was out ( helllooo where was I?), but as soon as I saw Emma Stone's face, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. I love that girl!
I also love books written in this time period about this subject. As hard as it is to read about it's not only an important part of history, but a topic that needs to be talked about.

I loved Stockett's characters in this book. I felt a real connection with Skeeter, thinking differently than her friends. I loved Minny the most and her whit. I also loved to hate Hilly Holbrook and what she stood for, and I was hoping someone would punch her in the face, but the 'Terrible Awful' was pretty sweet too.

The book isn't terribly fast-paced, but having three POV's to follow makes it move along quite smoothly. I highly recommend this book , and I am excited to watch the movie because from what I've seen in the trailer, it follows pretty close to the book. it took me MONTHS for my turn to borrow it in the library but I'm so glad I got the chance to read it. I really enjoyed it.

4.5/5