The Help by Kathryn Stockett

If you are looking for a very suspenseful and exciting book with a very important message as well, you might want to consider reading The Help. I'm pretty sure this book would be a lot better and more meaningful to a girl than a boy because it is from the point of view of women the entire book. However, I'm definitely not a girl and I still really liked it.

The Help takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960's when the civil rights movement is picking up. The story switches off from the points of view of two black maids and best friends, Aibileen and Minny, and a white lady named Skeeter Phelan. Skeeter witnessed first-hand what her good friend's maid, Aibileen went through and came up with the extremely risky idea to interview black maids on what it was like to work for white people. Skeeter thought that a compilation of maids' stories would inform the country on what was going on in the south and make the lives of maids easier. After a while, Aibileen finally agreed to tell her stories to Miss Skeeter and help find other maids to tell their stories. The stories are mixed; some are of good experiences but others are very negative towards whites. In the meantime, Jackson was nearly boiling over as the civil rights movement swept across the country. Skeeter then received a new deadline to mail in the interviews to a publishing company.

This book was very interesting and exciting. It was gripping and new conflicts kept on popping up all over the place to make the story even more exciting. It gave an interesting view on the civil rights movement and taught me a lot about how complicated issues were back then in the South. There are only a couple down parts in the book that I don't think were necessary to the plot at all. I think the author should have left Stuart in her imagination rather than wasting my time reading about the short romance between him and Skeeter. Maybe some people like that kind of stuff though. I personally don't think it added at all to the story.

The author clearly stated her opinions through characters and examples about friendship, trust, and courage. The author shows through the friendship of Aibileen and Minny how important it is to have or be a caring friend because Aibileen and Minny had to trust each other and lean on each other during hard times. They had to have courage and faith to trust Miss Skeeter that she would keep their stories safe with her and not betray them.

This book clearly talks about the importance of equality. In the time period that the story took place, black people were treated like dirt in that part of the country. But by having most of the book told by the two black women, the author shows how everybody is the same no matter what color skin you have. However, the white ladies in the book aren't just prejudiced against black people. There is a new white lady who moves in and wants to be a part of ladies' bridge club. The ladies in town are convinced by their leader not to like or include the new lady, Celia, in any of their meetings because a previous issue between Celia and Hilly, the leader. The author makes people feel ashamed of how we treated others in the 1960's and makes us want to treat people equally.

Overall, I thought this was a really interesting and exciting book. It contains a lot of good messages and doesn't fall short on action one bit. I really enjoyed it and I would recommend it to anyone, especially girls. This book has earned an A. No more, no less.