The Help

The Help Review

I very much enjoyed reading this book but in the end I cannot give it a five-star review. In my opinion, Stockett did a marvelous job creating the main characters, who leap off the page and convey so much warmth and humanity. They are layered and interesting, and their relationships have the ring of truth. And though the author makes a few small historical errors, overall her portrayal of Mississippi in the early 1960s is very convincing, with its bizarre social rules and deep-seated hypocrisy. The book is a page-turner and, mostly, a delight.

But several aspects of the novel don't work for me at all, and lessen the book's impact quite a bit.

For one, I simply cannot buy that Minny, for ages, pretty much got away with the so-called Terrible Awful, which the despicable Hilly knew about from the get-go. That is wholly inconsistent with the world as it is depicted, in which whites cruelly punish blacks for small, even imagined slights. Yet we are to believe that powerful, vindictive, take-no-prisoners Hilly was satisfied merely to malign Minny's reputation after such a mind-boggling insult? I don't buy it. In fact, the entire pie storyline struck me as a contrivance so the book would include a shocking element to get readers buzzing.

I was also disappointed with the Stuart / Miss Skeeter love affair, such as it was. I kept being told how desirable Skeeter found Stuart, even after his appalling behavior the first time they meet, but why? He comes off as a privileged narcisstic boor who, by the way, drinks too much. Finally, Skeeter seems to recognize that he's not worthy of her attention, and it's a rewarding twist when we learn that Skeeter's mother actually is not that keen on him, either. Great! So why, then, does Skeeter say yes to his eventual marriage proposal? And why does her mother regret that Stuart will not be her son-in-law? Why isn't Skeeter, who we see has backbone, the one to walk away? That's not the Skeeter we've gotten to know, and I don't buy that, either.

Finally, I agree with the readers who commented that the story fizzled out, despite all that rich and vivid terrain. This book stands on an epic stage, and early on I would have thought I'd be crying buckets at the end. But while I wished the characters well and hoped for the best for them, when I turned the final page, I felt their drama ultimately didn't deliver much emotional punch.

The Help Feature

• ISBN13: 9780399155345
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

The Help Overview

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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