The Help by Kathryn Stockett

   Hey, everybody, guess what?
   You have to read this book, that's what.

   The Help is a book about writing a book about African American maids/nannies(the help) working in white households in the south. The book was written a year or two ago but the author was raised in the south by one of these maids so I am alright with that.Yep. Ok, I am out of practice.
   There are three characters telling their stories in this book; Skeeter (Eugenia), Aibileen, and Minnie. The main focus of The Help is Skeeter's attempt to write a book of interviews that tells the stories of the maids (Aibileen and Minnie, etc.) in Jackson, Mississippi at the time of the Civil Rights Movement. I'm a history major(well, social studies) so I got a lot of this aspect; Stockett made references to a lot of the major and minor events around this time. Stockett also dealt with a lot of other issues, such as motherhood(the help basically raise the children), marriage, illness (Skeeter's mother has stomach cancer), friendship (that sounds cheesy but it's good) and grief. I am not going to get into all of this though; I don't want to ruin the book.
   Criticisms: My mother mentioned that she heard or thought that Skeeter was unrealistically progressive in her views on both women and African American equal rights and I think I agree; on the other hand, most people are not going to appreciate that aspect of realism. There were, I think, one or two tiny little things I didn't agree with or that I didn't think were funny when they were supposed to be, but over all I loved this book and everyone who reads my blog and everyone who doesn't read my blog should read this book.

Rating? Very, very good.
Read again? Yes.
You read? Read the first two lines of this post.
Age level? Teen +