Just a heads up...mostly girls will find interest in this book, but it can be read by anyone!
O.K., picture yourself as an odd "something" coming out of a weird spacecraft no one has ever seen before, except you. All the people of earth stare at you with confused, scared, and questioning eyes. You wonder why everyone looks at you only because you have a different complexion. It's normal to you. You have feelings. Why are people treating you so different? What's wrong with all these crazy people?!
Now Aibileen is a black maid living in Jackson, Mississippi, who works for a white family and is raising her seventeenth white child. She finds herself in a situation as if she is a different species to all white people. Aibileen has her own bathroom in the Leefolt's home. She must shop at a black market and live in an all black neighborhood. This is the same for almost all African Americans who live in America before Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. Although she deals with this everyday, she has never been disrespectful to her white families as they are to her. Aibileen keeps quiet unlike her best friend Minny Jackson. Minny always says what's on her mind whether it should be shared or not. She can never hold on to a thought before it blurts out of her. But when Aibileen asks her to write about their lives as maids with Miss Skeeter, opinionated Minny finds herself saying yes. Miss Skeeter wants to write; become a journalist. When she gets the idea of writing about the help she can't seem to get rid of the thought; even if it means prison or the loss of a life.
These three women take the risk of writing about a black person's life and the people and families in it. Because of the racial problems at this point in time, no one has ever shown good feelings about their help, let alone write a book about them. In this well written novel, you find yourself pulled in to what it is like living in a divided world. Miss Skeeter and the help take a huge step in trying something new that could change their lives.
Even though this book has a sad reality, it is very humorous. Kathryn Stockett writes about the help from experience, she too had a black family maid. I thought about how these people keep their hopes up even when they have so little and are treated so differently, just because they are African American. Everyone goes through a challenge at some point in their life and in this story they are solving theirs. I really thought this book had a great plot and showed that everyone can look different on the outside, but have their own feelings inside. Although I really liked this book it does have a bit of swearing, however no f bombs are dropped. I don't have a big problem with swearing as long as it's meaningful, and in this book it mostly is. But if you are in any way, appalled by any swearing...still read this book! This book is entertaining and well written. I was drawn in right from the start; even though I was very tired from a long day, I stayed awake to read the beginning of this story. I'm glad I did because I so much enjoyed The Help.
This book relates to a lot of things the world is still struggling with. For example religion, gays, and other forms of diversity. When I read this book I felt like it was telling about all of our different personalities. I didn't find myself disagreeing with really anything the author wrote about. As I thought about this book not all of us have the same opinions, but we do all matter. The Help is one of the best books I've ever read.
No comments:
Post a Comment