Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My very dear friend came to visit me 2 weeks after having Ben and she was reading this book and was all engrossed in it...so much so anytime Ben and I were not entertaining her she was reading it.  One day we spent the whole day inside, as people with newborns so and she read that book all day.  Wow, I remarked that must be a good book and she stated that it was.

So on vaction as I mentioned before I found the book in the guest house library and started reading it...it was good and addictive.  I didn't get to finish it so I went to the library in my town to borrow it and had to be put on the wait list.  Well, Tuesday after picking up Ben I went to the library to turn in the dvd Weeds, one of my addictions while I was on maternity leave, the TV guide channel would have marathons of the show and hubby and I would stay up late Sunday night and watch it...by that not the point.  Upon my arrival at the checkout counter the librarian ( are they all librarians, I mean there were like 5 people behind the counter.  Do you have to be a librarian to work at a library?  I wonder.) told me my books were in.
Anyway, I finished the book last night.

The book, purely fictional, was about black help in the 1960 in Jackson Mississippi.  It really centers around 3 main characters 2 servents and one affluent white women, who writes a book (called Help) with the help of the 2 servants and their friends about the help in Jackson Mississippi in the 1960, so it's kind of like reading the book which the people in the story are writing.  The characters are entertaining and all have different points of view on the situation they find themselves in.  It give a great insight into the two cultures of that time and the depth of segregation and the pressure on people who didn't agree with it to conform.  I thought the book really flowed, I never felt lost or had to go back and read a character's previous chapter to figure out the current chapter I was in.  And the end is amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.  Interestingly ( for me anyway, it may not be for you)  it was written by a white women.

All in all a great book...I was sad when it ended.