Review: This isn't a book I would normally have picked up to read, but after joining a book club this was what everyone was reading. I was surprised when I absolutely loved it; I couldn't put it down. Stockett takes the reader through all emotions; its suspenseful, funny, enraging, uplifting, and heart breaking.
The Help brings the reader directly into Jackson, Mississippi during segregation. You really feel what the characters are experiencing. Its an eye opener for younger people who didn't experience segregation. Although, I cannot help but draw parallels to the way homosexuals are being treated today. Its appalling that in 2010 there are still people who are not allowed to marry someone they love. Just like not so long ago when it was illegal to have interracial marriages.
Synopsis: After graduating from college, and not managing to nail down a husband 22 year old Skeeter doesn't know what to do with her life. She moves back home to Jackson, Mississippi during a time when segregation is at its peak. She aspires to become a writer but needs something controversial to write about. She decides to start interviewing the black maids who work for white households. These maids raise their children for them, and once these children grow up they cycle repeats.
Abigail and Minny are two black maids who agree to help Skeeter, at great personal risk to themselves. They each have their stories to share about the different abuses they have witnessed or have experienced first hand. A young black man in the community was beaten with a tire iron just for accidentally using the white bathroom. Another young maid was forced to use "special" soap when she washed, it was actually undiluted bleach. These are just the side stories Minny and Abigail tell, knowing that a fate much worse than a tire iron will happen if they are found out telling the truth.
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