The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2011, Paperback, Reprint)

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step into the world of 1960s racism.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

I loved, loved, LOVED this book. I loved the historical aspect, I loved the characters, I loved looking at this world from the two different perspectives, I loved the black maids, and I especially loved their voices. It was like I could actually hear them talking in their sassy way.

I loved the story within a story:

Skeeter’s relationship with her mother, her trying to find herself in a home/relationships/town where she didn’t fit in.

The maid’s relationship with their employer vs their friends vs their own families

The maids relationship with the children they help raise

Skeeter’s relationship with the maids that developed throughout the story

The white society women, some kind, others not. Although Hilly is the villan in this story, there were many women like her

Celia’s desperate attempt to fit in, and her inability to treat Minny as beneath her.

This is by far the best book i have read in a long time. It weaves togther the lives of upper middle class women, all friends, who were born and raised by black "help", maids, babysitters and so on and as they grow to have homes of their own also find they need Help. But it is the 1960's and black women are tired of being put down and say yes to every white woman they work for. They are good enough to raise a white woman's baby but not use her bathroom!? One of the Woman gets outcast by her socialite life when people catch ind that she is secretly taking the life stories of these black housekeepers in hopes there will be some understanding taht leads to equality. The black house maids not only have their "boss's" lives to deal with but also their own.
Every character is accounted for and each person's story comes full circle, no mention of someone to not be heard from again. Each chapter and section is one of the 3 main character's pionts of view. Absolutly terrifiying reminder that such inequality wasn't really that long ago.

The Help is about a young white woman in the early 1960s in Mississippi who becomes interested in the plight of the black ladies' maids that every family has working for them. She writes their stories about mistreatment, abuse and heartbreaks of working in white families' homes, all just before the Civil Rights revolution. That is the story in a nutshell - but it is so much more than just stories.

This is the best book I have read in years! I can't recommend it enough! It is fabulous and I think they will make a movie out of it. I would compare it to the writings of Carson McCullers, Harper Lee, Truman Capote and even Margaret Mitchell. The story grabs you and doesn't let you go. You can smell the melted tar on the Mississippi roads, the toil in the cotton fields, the grits burning on the stove. The theme is the indomitable will of human beings to survive against all odds - because of the color of their skin. It is a heart-wrenching account and you will never fondly remember the times of the Jim Crow laws (if you ever did). The pure, down and out bitchery of the white ladies who become dissatisfied with their maids and proceed to ruin their lives is portrayed vividly. The desperation of the maids' circumstances is truly touching. I have laughed and cried my way through this book and plan to re-read it. I highly recommend this book because it is going to be talked about as the best book of the year.

I loved this book. The story made me laugh and cry. The characters are amazing. Some parts are written in the dialect of a Southern black woman in the 1960's. But it was not difficult to read the dialect, not like Mark Twain. I carried the hard cover book on a flight across the states because I could not put it down! The women are interesting, lovable and brave as they find a way to have their voices heard when racial tensions are running high. The story is so poignant and so vivid I can see it becoming a screenplay soon. But don't wait for the movie, Read it now!