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The Help. Movie Tie-In

By Kathryn Stockett

(408)

| Others | 9780425244296

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33 Reviews

2 people find this helpful

Easily one of my new favourites for this year. I found it hard to believe this was a first novel. The characters were amazing and I really had to stop myself from holding my breath. An amazing story from start to finish. If you haven't read it yet, you should be.

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Leahrussell76 said on Oct 4, 2009 | 1 feedback

1 person find this helpful

I don't know if this book will be considered as a classic years or centuries later. However, when I read this book, all I can think about is "IT IS GREAT!". I am an Asian, who only know two historical events mentioned in this book: the assassination of President Kennedy and the speech by Martin Lu ... (continue)

I don't know if this book will be considered as a classic years or centuries later. However, when I read this book, all I can think about is "IT IS GREAT!". I am an Asian, who only know two historical events mentioned in this book: the assassination of President Kennedy and the speech by Martin Luther King, but I would love to hack the website to give the book six stars if I were able to do it. : p
The background of the story is set in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1960s. Unsurprisingly, the main theme of this book is the racial discrimination against African Americans and the civil right movement by then. This novel is unique in showing of the life of colored maids from their own aspects of views, including their observation of the white families that they serve. Under such atmosphere, there are still white families treat their colored maids well, and even becomes good friends with them. This shows that human can behave nobly when a bad discipline is considered as the gold standard. All the major heroins are described in a clear and dominant way, so clear and dominant that I used to think the wise Aibileen, the irascible Minny, and sympathetic Skeeter and the mean Hilly having dialogues in front of me. When this is a book about colored maids, the life of Skeeter in Jackson shows the battle of a girl, which makes the book more colorful. As daughters, most of us have moms whom we disappoint in every way: our dresses, our education, our jobs and our marriage status, but who love and protect us for their whole life. As girl friends, we may have to choose between to change to meet lover's expectations, or to be ourselves. As members of any group, the isolation is not always avoidable, when we have conflicts with the dominant girl of the class, the school, the office or the community. As friends, we don't know what to do when our best friends make mistakes. Likely to be in different formats, but the battle of a girl is not that different now and way back in 1960s.
It may be too ambitious to include so many factors in a novel, but I think the author does a very good job.

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Alveole Wu said on Dec 11, 2011 | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

Read it before the film comes out!

This is one of the best books I've ever read. Compelling, easy to read, brilliant characterisation and an interesting look at 1960's Mississippi. Would recommend it to everyone.

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Danielle said on Jun 15, 2011 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

The Help

I think is not easy to write about any kind of violence, but this book tells the story in a delicate way never trying to hide the truth.
Well written with formidable characthers as Skeeter Aibileen Minny and Hilly.

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Martyscoop said on May 31, 2012 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

I would've punched Hilly right in the face

Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. Three women. One story. Two years in which you go with them through their everyday life. Hopes, love, fear, courage. The difference of being white or black, a world where your color told more 'bout you, than your behaving. And finally, the will to take a chance to change ... (continue)

Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. Three women. One story. Two years in which you go with them through their everyday life. Hopes, love, fear, courage. The difference of being white or black, a world where your color told more 'bout you, than your behaving. And finally, the will to take a chance to change things. A brave decision that takes sacrifices with: losing friends, jobs, being beaten so hard you almost die. But in the end it was worth doing it. Fighting to be free.
A story most people would rather forget. Reading, you can almost touch the fear those black maids lived with, and you feel ashamed being white, being of that color that behaved so inhuman.
Probably we're still ashamed of that, 'cause anybody talks about what happened really. What this black folks went through.
It is useful having knowledges about what went on in the southern states of the U.S. during the '60s, 'cause those facts are only mentioned in the book, but I think they're really important to understand what it ment living there being the "wrong" color.

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Chantal said on May 6, 2012 | 1 feedback