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The Help |  | Author: Kathryn Stockett
Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $9.99
as of 11/27/2009 10:05 CST details
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Seller: best_bargain_books3
Rating:  1168 reviews
Sales Rank: 9
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 0399155341
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780399155345
ASIN: 0399155341
Publication Date: February 10, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 1168
Characters so well-drawn, you feel like you're in their kitchens November 27, 2009
S. Hormby (Rockville, MD)
A wonderful book about women who become compatriots, collaborators and friends in a time when such relationships are unthinkable, a time when the help's humanity is invisible to most of their white employers. Their fear, suspicion and bitterness are laced with the bittersweet story and the wry chuckle to form characters so real, you'd like to visit with them at their kitchen tables. I highly recommend the audio book version, with its rich and well-read voices.
Best Book November 26, 2009
B. Davis (Beautiful Northwest USA)
This certainly has to be one of the best books to come out in recent years. I expect a movie will soon follow. Having grown up in the south in the 50's and 60's, I could relate to the culture of the times. This book is so well-written, so compelling, I could not put it down! This is definitely a must read.
Fantastic character development November 25, 2009
Roxanne Speck (Albany,NY)
I loved it. I could not put it down! I wish I had 10 more like it to read. The author draws you into Jackson, Mississippi from the first page. I have never felt so close to a character I did with Aibileen. What wonderful character development. It is a touching and very personal view of life in the deep south in the early 60's. There could be no better way for our younger generations to really understand what blacks in America in the south had to endure then to read this novel.
 So needed an editor November 25, 2009
Amy Beth Edwards (chicago, il)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I think enough has been said regarding the writing of this book--like most of the other one and two star reviews, I was put off by the dialect and by the stereotypical characters. I'm sure that is "how" people sounded in MS in the early 1960s, but Kathryn Stockett is not a good enough writer to pull it off. In the author's favor, however, I will say that I thought the ideas behind this book were great--especially how complex the relationships between the white women and the black "help" could be and were. It's a complex subject and the author managed to convey this. Good idea, not so great execution.
BUT, and here I will rant a bit, where was the editor for this book? In the end notes the author confesses to playing with time. For instance, Shake 'N Bake is mentioned but didn't hit the shelves until 1965. A Bob Dylan song is referenced but wasn't released until 1964. Okay, but why did they have to be included? They certainly weren't plot points but a writer is allowed to just make stuff up? I find it disturbing that an author would go to the mat for trivial matters like this. But then, she references things in the book that hadn't happened yet and these are significant civil rights events. A character is a member, presumably, of the Black Panther party which wasn't founded until the second half of the sixties. And she refers to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church (in which 4 girls were killed) well before the event happened. I found all this to be quite disturbing as the author was attempting to write about this time period in a thoughtful and respectful manner. To screw up key facts like this is, to me, very poor writing and editing.
I was there! November 25, 2009
nana27 (FL)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
An excellent book. Stockett did a good job of incorporating the historical incidents with the story. The characters were strong, believable, and inspirational. A tough act to follow. Good job!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1168
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