The Help | 
 enlarge | Author: Kathryn Stockett
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  2514 reviews
Sales Rank: 14
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B002YKOXB6
Publication Date: February 10, 2009
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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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 2514
 Black Maids Speak---and it's GOOD! September 3, 2010
Jay Gilbertson (Prairie Farm, WI USA)
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
Book Review by Jay Gilbertson
Though this novel has soared up every chart, what drew me in and kept me reading was author Stockett's risky writing technique. Using first person, (meaning the reader is seeing the world from one perspective) the novel is told through the eyes of three very different women. The tale opens in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi and if you haven't figured it out yet, the main theme concerns the domestic help--the maids.
Two out of the three characters saved this work from completely tanking; Aibileen and Minny. Though heavy on the caricature side, their voices and concerns and harsh realities were the thunder in this perfect storm of racial tension about to rip open. As the maids rub and scrub the homes of the privileged white women, they also care for their children. What's significant is the nature of these exploited maids in that they choose to love and care for them as if they were their own.
The opening:
"Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that's what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning..."
The interaction of the `maid-network' and how they manage to find some crumbs of pride and wring a few drops of happiness out of a really rotten situation should have been the theme. Should have.
Enter Eugenia Phelan or Skeeter as everyone but her mother calls her. A college graduate with all the trimmings of a rich southern girl--minus one--no man in sight. Here is where The Help morphed into cliché-ville . Since Skeeter can't seem to attract the proper blood-line in accordance to her mother's long list of family- tie-must-haves, she realizes her only escape from the plantation is to land a book deal. She sets out to interview (steal) as many of the maid's tales of what really went on during their day. Some of the stories are brutal and filled me with shame, while a few others offered a big helping of my favorite dish; hope. That is the road this book should have taken.
In the end, Skeeter's book is a big success and off to New York, contract in hand, she goes. As for the other two women, it's not so clear. Then I learned exactly why the author was so intent on having Skeeter presented as a sugar-coated-helpful-white-lady. After the novel ends, the author had added: `Kathryn Stockett, in her own words.' Basically, Stockett limply confesses her guilt for never having asked her very own family maid this one question: What did it feel like to be black in Mississippi, working for her white family?
I would imagine she already knew...
 Enlightment . September 3, 2010
M. W. M. (OH)
I finished reading this book, after having heard about it for at least a year. I must say I was a young bride in the sixties, engrossed in my life and not truly realizing what was taking place in our southern states. The book brought to me an invitation into their lives at that time. Fact or fiction I thank Ms Stockett for her story. I found myself apologizing, yes, for not truly having the knowledge I should have had. There were many heart warming stories, so many humorous parts I had to pause, lay the book down as I enjoyed what I had just read. When it was a time of horror I again found I had laid the book down while my mind and heart caught up with each other. I had to just pause and give myself time. I found myself laughing aloud and cheering for Abileen and the other black ladies and their strength and boldness they forced upon themselves. So proud of them was/am I and of dear Skeeter. The ending was good, many good things were happening all due to their bravery! ... I thank the author for her having enlightening me to this particular part of life in the south. MWM
 WOW! September 3, 2010
Khanweezy (Florida)
Beautiful, amazing, soulful, witty, sad, touching, real (not literally)... Actually, I can't find the words to describe the book, but it is great and definitely a must read. 2 things I noticed aside from the story itself that I love about Kathryn Stockett's writing (and I only mention these two because I'm sure the other reviewers have already raved about all her other great qualities):
1. She so perfectly describes the physical aspects of any situation where characters interact, especially body language and facial expressions. I found myself thinking, "I never realized people make that face when they feel that way, but she nailed it!" For example, she describes Skeeter's mother driving away from the house in the car that Skeeter needed right away, and the mother stops briefly, starts driving again, then stops again and finally pulls up to the house. The mother says she forgot something and remembered it on her way towards the road (they have a long driveway). I just thought it was such a perfect description of how people really act when they forget something. "Aww, man! Ahhh, forget it! Nah, I really better go back and get it. "
2. Related to the first, she has a good way of linking body language, facial expression and physical action to tell us what people are really thinking or intending.
READ THIS BOOK!!
a must read September 3, 2010
farm girl
For a first book, this author produced a winner. The characters felt like real people. I really hated for the story to end..a real letdown to have to say "goodbye" to these truly inspirational women.
Wonderful September 3, 2010
I LOVE BOOKS (Italy)
I loved one of the comments on the back cover of this book (on the British print): "A laugh-out-loud, vociferously angry must-read". I would only add "Unequivocally poignant and touching".
I would give it 10 stars if I could. Love, hate, integration, familial relationships, tolerance, hope... this is what the book is about. A delightful, funny, moving read. Upsetting and uplifting at the same time.
Jackson, Mississippi, 1960s. When racial integration was still hardly tolerated, the respective paths of two black maids and a white lady belonging to the upper class circle cross. Their personal tales interweave and blend, with a project in mind which will ultimately rock the proverbial boat.
Each main character writes in first person: Aibileen, who is raising her umpteenth white child with love and dedication while constantly thinking of her own son, now dead.
Minny, Aibileen's close friend, married with several children of her own, a maid with a soft heart but a sharp tongue which gets her into trouble more often than not.
Miss Skeeter, a white lady with her own dreams, whose unconventional ideas contrast mildly, and later on, sharply with the society and family she was born into. She also wants to find out why the adored black maid who raised her, Constantine, has inexplicably disappeared. No one is willing to tell her.
Each lady is surrounded by her own sets of characters in the background, characters that however are primary pawns to what will eventually happen.
The author gives voice to Aibileen's and Minny's language superbly. You will find a language contrast between the well-schooled Miss Skeeter and both maids, which renders a vivid and true portrait of their lives and views.
This is, in my opinion, a rare timeless piece of narrative, which will make you think as well as entertain you like very few books can. Wonderful, really wonderful. Well done to the author Ms. Kathryn Stockett!
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 2514
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