August Book Club

Sadly, I forgot to get a group picture.  Sorry friends :(

For August we read:

SPOILER ALERT!  DON'T CONTINUE READING UNLESS YOU'VE READ THE BOOK OR DON'T CARE IF YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I wanted to serve dinner while we discussed the book.

 Fried chicken was the obvious choice!  Funny thing:  everyone was supposed to bring a side dish.  I picked up some garlic bread when I went to get the chicken, Andrea brought rolls, and Sara brought rolls.  Luckily Erin brought a salad, but she was debating between salad and crescent rolls. It was a carb night! 

For dessert, we had the terrible awful!  Just kidding...it was just chocolate pie.  When hubby came home, he asked if Marie Calendar took a dump in the pie...we had a good laugh.

Our Thoughts on The Help:

Stewart was a total jerk!  We kept hoping he would come around and Skeeter and him would end up together, but they didn't, and he was a jerk!

It is really sad/weird to think that this happened during our parent's generation!  It wasn't that long ago that people were being treated this way.

It is scary that Hilly had so much control EVERYWHERE!  In her community, in her city, etc.  She needed a swift kick in the butt!  Elizabeth was such a drone/sheep/door mat.  She just did everything Hilly told her too.  We wanted her to finally stand up against Hilly, but no!

The terrible awful was disgusting and hilarious!  Chocolate pie will never be looked at the same way.

The style back in the 60s was funny to think about.  Like shot hair was brazen, ladies wore wigs, etc.  They mentioned a lot of styles in the book.

The way it ended was realistic.  Nothing epic happened, and it was a bit sad, but realistic.

It was a bit frustrating for Sara that the author changed narration every couple of chapters.  Some situations left you hanging.  I liked the change in narration, but the cliffhangers were a bit grrr!

There was much crying while reading.

For September we are reading:

I picked this up at the UBM Party.  The ladies thought it looked interesting.  I'm a bit nervous about it, but I hope it's good.

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. 

The Help

My Thoughts:

-    Those white ladies are snobs!!  It makes me sad that there are real people like that.

-    They wore wigs in the 50s?

-    Minny cracks me up!  She is hilarious!!  I feel bad for her though.  A crappy job and an abusive husband would be horrible!  I'm glad she got to work for Celia. 

-    Celia was funny.  She was so dumb, but at least she was nice.  She probably worked harder than any of the other ladies! 

-    I really liked Skeeter.  She was a great character, and Emma Stone did a wonderful job.

-    I am never going to eat chocolate pie again.  EW!

-    I can't imagine letting someone else raise my child.  It would take all the joy out of family life.  Why have kids if you are only going to pick them up once a day, if that?!?!?  I felt bad for the kids in the movie.

-    I really enjoyed the movie, it was well done, and it was really heart felt.  I liked the messages of the story as well, especially that doing the right thing takes courage sometimes.  I loved that.

-    I couldn't understand some of the dialogue.  They either mumbled or I had to have my hubby interpret for me.  I have a hard time understanding Southern accents sometimes. 

-    I laughed, I cried, it was a great movie!  I'm excited to read the book!

Tyson's Thought:

-    I learned a lot about Crisco, loved the surprise pie, and I'm hungry for fried chicken.

Hubby's Thought:

-    It was very good, and also made me want to eat fried chicken.