Review: The Help

It is 1962 in Jacksonville, Mississippi. The times may be changing, but not fast enough for three women, two black and one white, in this town where the lines between the races are so rigid they don't need to be voiced. Aibileen has raised 17 white children in her various maid jobs, but recently she lost her own grown son. Her younger friend Minny's sassy mouth has cost her so many positions that ... Read full review

Excellent book about Southern white women and the maids that work for them. Read it on Kindle...Oct. 5, 2009

The sacred nature of these relationships demands more - more grit & more character building. Maybe omniscient episodic rather than 1st person. Felt like the author proved her point from a utopian, neat white person perspective.

I loved this book - it seemed to real. This book will beat the upcoming movie hands down. Great read!

i hear it's really great

I just finished this book after I watched the movie. I expected it to be more like the movie, but really it was not. It was better than the movie. I must admit, from all of the stories I have heard about racism in the South, I had no idea what the culture was really like until I read that book and got the flavor of it so to speak. I think the story was told very well and I could see and hear the characters in my mind. I think the culture was very restrictive not only for black people but also for white people who did not agree with the way things were. It seems almost incomprehensible to me that I could not speak or associate with anyone but someone of my own race. (Wierd) But I think the part of the story that broke my heart the most was part about how Constantine (?) gave away her child because the child looked too white and the all of the problems it caused. This child was given away to strangers purely because of color. What a hard choice that would have been to make as a mother. This broke my heart and made me hate the society that did this to her. This was a very moving and well told story, a real eye opener. A really good book. 

I think that the book The Help is Great because it shows that all people should be equal. Just because someone is a different color does not matter it matters what is in the inside.

The words all right are used incorrecty thoughout the book. The author makes all right into one word, alright, which is incorrect.

It was ok when i read it, if i was sitting alone bored it would be great ☺☻♥♠♣♦•◘○o muahaha.

Through the strong voices of two black maids and one white woman, readers get a glimpse of the cruel treatment of African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement. Aibileen, who lost her only son in an accident, is a devoted maid who fiercely loves the children for which she cares and often gives them more attention and guidance than their own parents. Minny is known for her terrific cooking, but also for her tendency to freely speak her mind to the white people for whom she works. Skeeter, fresh from college and writing a housekeeping column for the local paper, could not be more different than her white friends. Vying to be published by Harper Collins and inspired by the maid who tended to her throughout her childhood, Skeeter decides to write a book about the lives and treatment of African American maids; a truly dangerous mission in an area strewn with the Ku Klux Klan and an opposition to the Civil Rights movement. A first novel for this author, this beautiful story gives a raw and personal look at the treatment of southern blacks in the early sixties.