The Help Book Review

I wasn't going to start this book until I heard that we were going to watch the movie at Girls Night!!  I had to get ready and fast.  I started The Help Deluxe Edition by Kathryn Stockett on Tuesday afternoon and got about 60 pages read before I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore.  I was trying to figure out how many days it was going to take me to read it if I kept up that pace but on Wednesday, I read through a bunch more and got to over the halfway point.  I had faith and with a little luck and a lot less sleep, I could get this done before Saturday night movie night with the girls!!  HAHA!!!  I finished the 444 page monster book by Thursday night :)  My reading has really paid off because I am as fast as I was in college.

I thought it was a quick read that was a page turner.  My mother in law said that she had a little trouble getting into it with the dialect but I think that whenever it was confusing, I skip over things (the main reason why I almost failed my essay on the Jungle by Upton Sinclair in high school.. all the names were Russian and I couldn't keep them straight).  However, with this book, it didn't matter because it was just a few added words to make it sound more Southern (hear that with a southern accent because I can't figure out how to write that into the word).  I loved the story and I am super glad that I hung in and got it out of the library after having to return it last time because there was someone else who had it on hold before I even got to start it :(

For those of you who don't know what the story is about, it is a story about a bunch of people in Jackson, MS and their lives.  Each chapter in the book is written from a different perspective which I sometimes find hard to follow but I re-adjusted at the beginning of each chapter to make sure I knew who was talking and then I was fine.  There are a group of white southern society ladies and a group of black maids (aka the Help) and this follows the issues that they went through during the time of all of the racial tension with the local and national news during the early 1960's.  I hate to give too much away but you really get to know each character so well and either love or hate them very strongly by the end of the book.  Since I wrote my college thesis on racism, this book was something that I really connected with and appreciated but I think regardless of the subject matter, the character development makes the book worth every 444 pages :)

I think that you should get this very heavy book from your local library or bookstore.  Make sure that you are going to read this at home because it takes up a lot of room in a bag or suitcase and I don't think that it is a great beach reading book (mostly because of the weight of the book and not the weight of the subject material).  I hope that if you haven't already read it, that you check it out.  Please let me know what you thought!!  Did you see the movie??  I still haven't but I can't wait to see it soon :)