The Help

The Help
By: Kathryn Stockett

464 Pages

Reviewed By: Betsey Brooks

(My Loving Mom)

Summary:

Skeeter grew up in Jackson, Mississippi in a wealthy home. She returns to her parents' home after graduating from college ready to start her writing career. Unfortunately no publishing house wants to hire her because she has no actual work experience. The head editor of one publishing company encourages her to think outside the box, come up with fresh ideas to write about and send her the list. Meanwhile, Skeeter lands a job writing a column about household hints. This presents a problem because Skeeter, like most of her friends, had a maid that took care of all the family's needs. This included being a nanny to the children. Skeeter loved her nanny, but discovered she had left the family and no one would tell her why or where she was. Solving her two problems leads to her to seek the help of Aibileen, the maid of one of her girlfriends. The longer she writes the column, the more she learns about the lives of several black maids. The late 50's & 60's was full of racial tension especially in the Deep South. Slowly the women learn to trust each other and decide to write a book despite their fears of repercussions.

I recently had the opportunity to read the new best seller The Help. I would recommend this book. It grabbed me from the beginning and I couldn't put it down. The story takes you on a roller coaster of emotions, from surprise up to humor, down to tragedy and back up to humor. Through the story the author proves over and over that all people are alike. We have the same needs, wants and desires.

Happy Reading.