The Help

 I've wanted to read The Help by Kathryn Stockett since the moment I saw it on the shelf about a year ago. I put it on my wishlist, but kept reading other books. As the months went by I heard people say how much they loved it while it rose on bestseller lists. I finally bought it in October (because the hold list at the library was a mile long), and though my book club read it in November, I still procrastinated. I knew this was going to be a good book; too many people loved it for it to be a flop. However, I (wrongly) thought it was going to be a large commitment. A thick hardback about segregation in early 1960's Mississippi? That to me was a no brainer... get ready to have some heavy reading in a book you should be reading, even if you don't thoroughly enjoy it. Wrong. Incorrect, mistaken, false; if I could remember how to say it in another language I would. 

This novel, that I thought was going to be more of an education than an escape, was nothing like what I expected it to be. It reads smoothly, like you are sitting at a kitchen table sipping sweet tea with the very characters themselves while they are filling you in on the gossip of their town. The narration switches between Miss Skeeter (a white aspiring writer and new college graduate in her early 20's), Minny (a black maid and sassy mother of five in her 30's), and Aibileen (a black maid, sought after baby nurse, and talented writer in her 50's). Skeeter returns home to Mississippi after graduating from college in 1962 only to find that she no longer quite fits in with her lifelong friends. While they left college after one or two years to marry and start having babies, Skeeter finished her education and came home with plans for a career. Once home, the town's views about segregation and the roles of black and white people as citizen classes do not bode as well with her as they do with her friends (one of whom is the Junior League president, and staunch segregation supporter). And, to top it all off, her beloved maid and nurse, Constantine, has been fired and nobody will tell her why or where she's gone. Skeeter, wanting so much to be a writer, begins a project that has the potential to bring light to the circumstances in Jackson, Mississippi (one of the most notoriously racist cities of the time) but she will need the assistance of Aibileen, Minny and other Help even at the risking of their own lives. 

Though Stockett includes tragic events in the story, they are not the crux of the novel. They add to the setting because they explain the time. This is not a hard book to swallow, however, and you will not be wading through pages of history to get to the heart of the story. This book is actually the opposite. It wears it's heart on it's sleeve and adds history as relish to give the story depth and authenticity. The chapters narrated by Aibileen and Minny are especially beloved by many readers, me included, for the tone, rhythm, and flavor that they add to the story. 

I can't make you read this book, but I can tell you that you will be missing out if you don't. There are not very many books that pull you into them in such a way that you enter a different world while you are reading. This is one of those. I envy those of you who will be opening it and reading it for the first time. Don't pass it up.
Five Coconuts

xo,
The Coconut Librarian

Comments

[christine]

I have had my eye on this book for a while now and just found it at a used bookstore. Your wonderful review has convinced me to give them a call to hold it for me.

[Coconut Library]

You are a lucky one to find it at a used book store... definitely have them hold it for you! I hope you check back and tell us what you think of it after you've read it. Happy reading!

[Lisa]

It is a marvelous book!

[tessa]

I started reading this book a few days ago and I am already hooked! Good recommendation once again

[NorCal Reader]

I have started reading this book and love it so far! I just couldn't wait for it to go in to paper back.