Customer Reviews

The Help

5 star:		(1,348)
4 star:		(187)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

When a book makes you occasionally laugh out loud, has your eyes brimming with tears or has you shouting at the pages through empathy and anger, you know the author has a very rare talent. 'The Help' is one such book. I have not enjoyed a tome so immensely since Michel Faber's 'The Crimson Petal and the White'.
The story is told through three wonderfully real female characters; Minny, Aibileen and Miss Skeeter. The location is Jackson, Mississippi and it's the early 1960s - a turbulent time as the civil rights movement thunders along to the chagrin of many bigoted fools. One visionary in the small town defies her heritage and vows to make a difference and with the aid of the local maids, begins a project which will create havoc for those with lofty positions and appalling attitudes. Within the pages of the book, we are privy to scenes of amazing warmth, great humour and delightful characters with whom you'd love to spend time. Kathryn Stockett has also created one of the most venomous villains since Cruella de Vil and at times I found myself cursing this woman as if I knew her personally.
Vital, engrossing and utterly compelling, 'The Help' is a book I'd urge anyone to read.

I finished this book this afternoon after trying to drag out the ending as long as possible. I did not want to leave these characters behind; I wanted to continue on their journey with them, make sure they were OK ¨C I miss them already.

I have been hearing about this book and have read lots of positive reviews for the longest time but sometimes I get put off by books that have so much hype around them and end up passing them by. Oh how glad I am that I didn¡¯t do this with The Help. It is worth every glowing review, every recommendation and every superlative ever written about it.

The book is set in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962 and is narrated by three women in turn. Aibileen and Minny are black maids and Miss Skeeter is a white college graduate who mourns the disappearance of her old maid and wants to do something more with her life than marry a local boy and have her kids raised by maids.

The story takes us with these women as the embark on a dangerous journey to try and change decades of prejudice and pave the way for a better life for the next generations. Through the words of each of these women we learn how rife racism and intolerance was back in the 1960¡äs deep south. There are tales of unbelievable cruelty and humiliation but also tales of tenderness and real love. It was so good to hear a story told primarily from the point of view of the black maids too and refreshing to hear both sides in all its rawness; the distrust and even hatred on both sides. The book also successfully managed to avoid being sensational or over-egging the pudding. Despite the subject matter (which is so important) the book never feels too heavy or preachy: it is as light as one of Minny¡¯s famous caramel cakes and aswell as riotously funny and tender.

I implore you to read this book ¨C you will fall in love with Aibileen, roar with laughter at Minny and rootfor Miss Skeeter for 450 pages. And I guarantee that Miss Hilly is one of the best bitches you will come across in any book! She is truly awful but so brilliantly drawn and you will root for her to get her just desserts (pun intended).

I feel like I have lost friends now I have finished this book. It is a true gem and I highly, highly recommend.

It is not often I leave reviews, however this book deserves all the praise in the world and more! I have just finished reading this book and I have that empty and sense of loss feeling that comes with finishing a really good book. It is absolutely brilliant, I just couldnt put it down. The author has an amazing ability to transport you into each characters world and envision the stage of the characters. I came to love each character in the book and almost felt like they became my good friends by the last page. The book had me absolutely gripped and had me experience a range of emotions, one minute I was laughing out loud, the next almost in tears. It is very rare that a book be so successful at transporting me so effectively and willingly into the characters world. I really truly enjoyed this wonderful book.

I could not fault this book, if you want a book which keeps you turning the pages then you cannot go far wrong. I would recommend this to anyone as it is so well written, I really enjoyed this window on these women's lives, and having worked myself as a domestic cleaner there are elements which I can really identify with, even just cleaning houses you end up knowing more about some aspects of the occupants than probably their closest friends do.......its a weird position to be in and you often know things that you perhaps would rather not have found out. I hope there will be more books of this standard from this author.

This is a brave book that views the American Civil Rights movement largely through the eyes of the people at its sharp end - the black maids who looked after white folks children. This gives the book an authentic period feel and draws the reader in so that they feel transported to the early 1960s - the period the book is set in. The author, however, Miss Stockett, also draws some impressive white characters - especially the poor, ill-educated Miss Celia - a character who could give the average Big Brother contestant a run for their money in the intellectual stakes!
The book is funny in places and certainly makes the reader feel empathy towards the poor, the put upon and the neglected. The only drawback is the language used - as the authentic '60s American style is not so easily read by a 2009 Englishman! Still, I praised the book for its authenticity so you can't have it both ways.
If you like this I also recommend other books about race and the struggle for freedom:One Love Two Colours: The Unlikely Marriage of a Punk Rocker and His African Queen by Margaret Oshindele (my wife) - a book about a successful inter-racial marriage and Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany - the true story of a mixed race boy growing up in Nazi Germany. Both are extremely interesting reads that leave the reader thinking about their own prejudices and stereotypes.

There are so many things to love about this book - the characters, the plot and the settings - thoroughly enjoyable! My only criticism is that it lacked enough punch for me to be able to upgrade it to a 5 star read (...and I really wanted for it to be worth that extra star!).

I'm not American and I don't have any links to the deep south...I therefore don't have any authority to say this but...I felt a strong level of authenticity in the 'voice' of all three of the narrative strands, which made the book a delight to read. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a white writer to be able to step into the shoes of those black maids but for me, Kathryn Stockett has pulled it off.

The Minny/Celia elements of the narrative were my favourites. I loved Minny's brash humour and the fact that her 'sass-mouthing' got her into all ends of trouble! I also liked Stockett's juxtaposition of the race debate with the exploration of white-trash/society prejudice throughout this section of the narrative. For me, this gave an extra layer to the hypocrisy of supposedly civilised societies all over the world. - I particularly loved the scene where Minny was decrying the fact the Celia "...just don't see em. The lines." forcing Aibileen to 'philosophise' that those lines don't exist, that "...People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain't". Aibileen finishes off with the lovely phrase "...All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries." I feel this sentiment reached its climax through Aibileen's final scenes with Mae Mobley, following on the back of the earlier stories about 'Martian Luther King' and the candy wrapped in white and black wrapping. You know when reading the ending that Mae Mobley has some hard times ahead of her without Aibileen protecting her precious self-esteem with those words of wisdom.

There was a wonderfully written bittersweet river that coursed its way throughout the novel providing added depth to the whole story. I loved the inner beauty of Celia and Johnny's relationship, which was cast against the sadness that they'll never have children. The complex love that Skeeter's mother held for her daughter cast against serious illness and her treatment of Constantine. Stuart's laudable attempts to protect Skeeter's reputation but his final inability to follow through and marry the woman he obviously loved...and the irony that his final act helped to set her free to pursue her career in New York. The strength of Minny fighting injustice in her own inimitable way while at the same time putting up with such terrible treatment from her husband. The cruelty of Hilly's outward-facing persona contrasted with her obviously superior skills as a loving mother. The extraordinary kindness of Lou Anne Templeton to Louvvenia when her grandson is blinded after being beaten for using the white bathroom cast against her own sadness and mental health issues. The surprising levels of comfort many of these women get from each other that defies the boundaries of class and colour...I could go on and on and on about all the elements of this book that touched me.

When all is said and done the relationships between these women is far more complex than I'd ever imagined and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to read about them in this novel. In a perfect world I'd have liked to see Stockett deal a little more deeply with the effects of the extreme violence throughout the period of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. The historical, factual detail wasn't there in enough abundance for me - the shooting of Medgar Evers for example was an opportunity missed. And the lack of recriminations from the publication of the book was a bit of an anti-climax, much as I enjoyed seeing the Hilly Holbrook stranglehold loosened ever so slightly!

I would strongly recommend this book - I think this is one I'll re-read in a few years time and I know that it's going to stay with me. Overall and extremely satisfying read.

Every forty or fifty years a book comes along that not only makes readers sit up and take notice while at the same time shaking beliefs we've grown up with. That, to me, makes for a book destined to become an American classic.

For a country that prides itself on human equality, and for this reviewer who was brought up in the idealistic North, this book was a revelation that human inequality was alive and well in the 1960s. Although this story is set in the town of Jackson, Mississippi it could very well have been almost any city or town in the South.

Bent on a career as a writer, Skeeter Phelan (white college graduate)applies for an editor's position with a New York firm. Her ambitions and ideals are high. While she awaits a response she goes about her normal routine: bridge club on Wednesdays, Junior League on Thursdays (she's the newsletter editor), church, and the rounds of events at the country club. Like her peers she has little interaction with the help (black maids) of her friends, although she dearly misses the black maid who reared her while her own mother was similarly occupied with social events. In an effort to win her coveted job, Skeeter is advised to submit something she wrote - something of substance about an idea or philosophy that means something to her. The first thing that comes to Skeeter's educated mind is the inequity of the way in which the black maids are treated.

Set against the background of the racial crises of the 1960s and the very real threat of danger to not only Skeeter's life but that of the black maids and their families, Skeeter convinces Aibilene (the maid of one of her friends) to tell her story. When Skeeter's New York connection reads what she has submitted, Skeeter is asked to submit the remainder (Skeeter lies about having a dozen or so more maids to interview). If the New York publisher likes what she reads, she will publish the book.

Over the course of a year, Skeeter eventually gets her story. Along the way we are introduced to two very strong characters in the guise of black maids - Aibilene (cautious and quiet)and her friend Minny (impetuous and mouthy). On the other side of the racial line are Hilly (white, president of the Junior League, and master manipulator) who is married to a political hopeful and Cecilia (white, low-class, born on the wrong side of the tracks) who is married to Hilly's former beau.

In a seamless blending of viewpoints, Ms. Stockett gives us a rounded approach to everyday life in the South during the 1960s: from the blind acceptance of the white women expecting their black maid to do everything from housework to child rearing to the quiet understanding of the black maids that they are not worthy to share even the same bathroom as their employers.

Ms. Stockett's characters are well-rounded and complex. We learn to love (or hate) each of them and sometimes want to reach out and shake one or two.

A thoroughly enjoyable book that is destined to become an American classic. It should be on the reading list of every book club in America. I wish I could give it more than five stars.

My favourite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, so I have inherited a love for books about the Deep South of America.
I have noticed most of the negative reviews mention the southern dialect used within the book, however after the first couple of pages I found a really began to understand the language used and felt it added to the understanding of each character. Without the colloquial language, the book wouldn't have the raw and personal feel that it has.
I thoroughly enjoyed "The Help" and found I couldn't put it down! I have since been on the hunt for similar books and hope to find one just as enjoyable! Highly recommended.

As a bloke I found this a bit of a 'difficult purchase'; It's pitched (quite strongly... and wrongly) as a book for women, which rather does the book a total disservice. Even my wife looked at me oddly and said, "really?" when I made my mind up to buy it. Good leap on my part, that's all I can say!

To any blokes out there who are hesitant, teetering on the edge, this book is *not* a book for women. Nothing of the sort. It's about women. And, in my opinion, it should become compulsory reading in schools. Although it deals with the plight of black maids is 1960s Mississippi it is striking how the stories can still be superimposed over lives even today...and that is frightening. So it's relevant, but also it's funny, sad, shocking, and moving. Don't be fooled (I know I shouldn't have been) by the picture of a pretty blonde on the back cover, you'll discover that Kathryn Stockett's writing is beguiling and captivating. I really couldn't put this book down. The relationships are, at times, uncomfortably revealing, and the characters are so brilliantly crafted you know you're going to miss them at the end...

My wife now wants to read this, and my sister. But they'll have to wait or buy a copy, as I'm going to give it to someone else I know first. Someone I've known for 20 years, who may see himself and the world a little differently after he's read this book. :-D

In many ways, this is a wonderful book, as attested t by its many five-star reviews. The three main characters are all warm and sympathetic and yet individual, and the story both moving and original. But unlike many other readers, I had several reservations. The first was the American negro patios, faithfully reproduced in two of the three first-person accounts, which I sometimes found jarring, albeit no doubt authentic. I can see that this was necessary, but I still found it a bit much at times. The plot, too, seememd to straggle a little, and while the ending wasn't (and could never have been) a neat, happy-ever-after ending, I thought that it lacked something. Perhaps with so many lives affected by the events in the novel, it was impossible to create a better conclusion, but when I finished the novel I felt oddly dissatisfied. (I would be most interested to know whether anyone else felt that same as I did.) Having said that, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this novel, although it will never be one of my favourites.