The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

[Leah]

Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver… There’s Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they’d be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell...

It’s probably fair for me to say that although I’m a fairly clever person, there are aspects of life that I know nothing about. Like many people, I am well aware that the world used to be divided into two groups. The white people and the coloured people. To this day, it makes me angry, but back then the world was an entirely different place and that’s just how it was then. But as far as it goes, that’s pretty much all I knew. I don’t know why it was, I don’t know what brought about the change that sees people from all walks of life mix together in the twenty-first century as (I’d guess) most young people don’t, because to put it in the nicest way possible: what is it to us? (That goes for lots of things, too, not just the way white people and coloured people couldn’t mix). So when Danielle posted up the movie trailer for The Help, I took a look, out of interest more than anything else. I watched it and I was shocked; it looks like an amazing movie, but the whole premise of the movie was surprising. So because I am well aware that books are miles better than their movie adaptations, I downloaded The Help onto my Kindle and a week later, let me tell you it is one of the most astounding books I will ever, ever read and I feel like a better person for have reading it.

There is not a chance my review will do The Help justice. It’s the kind of book you have to read to see just how good it is. It’s tempting for me to just end this review right now and say: read it. Because if you haven’t read it, then you’re missing out. You’re missing out on a book that will go down in history as a classic. The Help is about so much more than showing us what life was like for coloured people in the 1960s. It’s probably even about things I couldn’t even describe or even realise, and I will still be thinking about it long after I’ve read it. The book has absolutely everything, despite the situation Aibileen and Minny find themselves in, despite the fact they spend their time waiting on white people, the book still managed to bring a smile to my face. A smile of hope, a smile that despite just how bad they were treated, they didn’t let it get them down. The book made me sad, it gave me tears in my eyes. It was suspenseful, particularly as Aibileen, Skeeter and Minny find themselves waiting for everything to come to a head. I truly feel as though I’ve spent more than a week with these people. It’s as if I truly know Aibileen, Skeeter, Minny – even Mae Mobley. It truly gets under your skin and doesn’t let you go.

Every single character is written with such depth that – I am not joking – it’s as if you’re there watching it play out, I was hoping Minny, Aibileen and Skeeter could pull off what they were doing, I was hoping Miss Leefolt and Miss Hilly would get exactly what they deserved. Despite how horrific Miss Hilly is, and she is a truly horrific and spiteful woman, you can still feel for her. I may not have liked what she did at all, but she just leaped off the pages along with every one else. Even Jackson, Mississippi seemed incredibly real to me. I could feel the heat and the cold, I could see Aibileen’s house and Skeeter’s house. Minny was the sassiest character I have ever come across, I have an awful lot of love for Minny. Honestly, you have to read this book just so you can meet Minny. Aibileen was very much the ying to Minny’s yang, she was a lot less hot-headed and her love for Mae Mobley and her dissent for the way Miss Leefolt treated her daughter was plainly evident. Aibileen was more of a mother to Mae Mobley that Miss Leefolt ever would be and that made me sad. Skeeter impressed me the most, because she’s the one who steps forward with the great idea. She’s the one who sees that the way the white people treat the coloured people is wrong on so many different levels.

What took me most about the book is way in which Kathryn Stockett has written it. The writing is just so authentic, it isn’t written ‘properly’, it’s written exactly how I presume people in the 60s spoke. It just made the book all the better. I’m not the kind of person that usually enjoys novels written like that, I prefer my books to be written properly, otherwise I generally find myself getting annoyed but there is no other way Stockett could have written The Help, because the way in which it was written just luminates the story more and more. The Help could have easily been an angry novel, Stockett could have easily managed to make Aibileen and Minny angry and resentful for everything they had to go through – I mean no matter who you are, the thought that a coloured person had to have their own bathroom back then makes my blood boil, because it’s so humiliating – and yet despite all of that, Aibileen, Minny and many of the other maids, have wonderful stories to tell. It isn’t all doom and gloom, and despite the fact the book is indeed a tough read from the perspective that things back then were just horrific for coloured people, the book is still uplifting in so many ways. It manages to encapsulate so many feelings in its 544 pages and there is not a dull moment whilst you read this novel.

I know it’s wrong of me to judge Ms Stockett, but when I read what the book was about I assumed she was a coloured lady. I truly did, but that’s not true at all. Ms Stockett is very much white and has first hand knowledge of what it is to grow up with coloured help. She’s undoubtedly poured a lot of what she remembers from the time into the novel, and it must have been so difficult for her and she mentions as much in the back of the novel. How she wondered how well the book would be received, how she was worried about writing the novel in the first place. She’s worried she has told too much, but I disagree heatedly. Because no matter how much she tells, I’m fairly sure there is still a lot, lot more that could be told. Kathryn Stockett hasn’t, as I’ve said, written the book to show that white people were horrible people back then, she’s presented it exactly how it was back then, warts and all, yes, but with the good moments, too. She’s shown that even before the civil rights revolution times may have been a-changing. I’m not going to pretend I know about times back then. I’m 21 years old, all I know is what I will learn from the Internet. But I do think The Help has educated me a lot, too. I applaud Kathryn for writing this novel, it is an astounding work of fiction. I have so many questions I would love to ask Kathryn about the novel. I read lots of books, I love lots of books, I give lots of books 5 stars, but this is one of those books that I would give infinity amount of stars, the amount of praise I have for this novel is overwhelming and I implore everybody to go out and buy The Help if you haven’t already read it. You only need to go and see the thousands (yes, thousands) of reviews on Amazon.com to know that this is a special, special novel and I truly hope the movie does it justice (from the trailer it looks like it will – Octavia Spencer looks EXACTLY as I pictured Minny whilst reading). You won’t regret reading The Help, I promise you.