The Help

Goodreads Synopsis:    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.

My Thoughts:

-    I like that this is a book about writing a book.  It reminds me of those old Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movies.  How it was a show about putting on a show.  I love it!

-    The terrible awful is hilarious, but it also grosses me out!!  I'm never going to look at chocolate pie the same way.

-    There was a really out of the blue scene about a naked man outside Miss Celia's house.  It was gross and highly inappropriate.  I didn't think it was needed in the book, and I'm very glad it wasn't in the movie.

-    I love the 3 narrators, and I love that we got to see different perspectives from the story.  Minny was my favorite! She cracks me up!  All 3 ladies were amazing in their own way.  I admire their courage, kindness, and compassion!

-    I watched the movie first, but I think the movie did justice to the book.  They got all the great stuff and the emotions.  They also cast the perfect people for the roles.

-    I love the emotions throughout the book.  I laughed so hard in some places, but I wanted to cry in others.  Those white ladies made me so mad sometimes!  I wanted to smack someone.  

-    The bit about Constantine just broke my heart.  

-    There was a lot of cursing in the book, and it really bothered me.  They mostly used the Lord's name and Christ's name a lot, and I didn't appreciate it.

-    I listened to the audiobook for the 2nd half.  It is SO good!!  The 3 narrators do an amazing job!  They give the story so much heart!

-    There is a lot to take away from this book, and I love good moral stories like this.  It just makes you ponder your own life and helps you feel a little good and bad about the world.  This story made me want to love my daughter more, and to be more kind to people.