The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

You know how you hear about a book that EVERYONE is reading and EVERYONE loves it and the list at the library is like 60 people long?  So you put yourself on the list and wait.  And wait some more.  And then you wait again.  And then your name FINALLY comes up on the list and you rush right down to the library and pick up the book. 

Then you get home and open it and start reading and like 30 pages later you're like, "This?  This is what everyone was talking about?  This is what I waited so long for?  Why?"

This book is not at all like this.

It definitely lived up to the hype.

Skeeter is a young woman who has moved back to her parent's home in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, after finishing college without obtaining a husband.  The maid who raised her has disappeared and no one will tell her where she went.  Skeeter, determined to become an author, hatches an idea to write a book of stories from the African-American maids who take care of the families in her community.  She doesn't get much help initially, finding only a kind hand from Aibileen, who has raised 17 white children, and Minny, who can't keep a job due to her penchant for talking back.  But eventually, others join in the cause and Skeeter finds that writing her book is eye-opening for everyone.

This book was interesting because it was told in alternately points of view: Skeeter's, Aibileen's and Minny's.  Three vastly different characters, relaying the events of the book as they go, giving the reader an insight into not only how everyone feels, but how they are viewed by the other characters.  There are the universally hated characters, such as Hilly, that tie everyone together, and the project of the book. 

This was an excellent book and all I had heard it would be.  I look forward to her next one.