| The Help |  | Author: Kathryn Stockett
Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $9.50
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Rating:  1768 reviews
Sales Rank: 3
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.8
ISBN: 0399155341
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780399155345
ASIN: 0399155341
Publication Date: February 10, 2009
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| • | ISBN13: 9780399155345 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
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, Aibileenâs best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobodyâs business, but she canât mind her tongue, so sheâs 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 womenâmothers, daughters, caregivers, friendsâview 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 donât.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1768
 Great read - don't pass this one up March 12, 2010
Lori Reeves (Jackson, TN)
I devoured this book. I had read the short teaser and saw how many people had given it 5 stars, and I knew that I had to read this book. I asked for the book for Christmas from my husband, and drooled until the day I opened it. It was a hard book to put down. The author really knows how to evoke reader emotion. Don't let this one get by you - it's a great read for anyone.
Book Club Winner March 12, 2010
Louise Logan (Hickory NC)
I was invited to join a book club in my community and the assigned book was "The Help." I was able to order a hard cover from Amazon for only $9.50 and since I ordered more books, the shipping was free! I need to be hooked on the first few pages or I cannot finish a book. "The Help" hooked me and kept my interest until the end. The author's dialogue between the characters was so authentic. I enjoyed getting to know each character, even Hilly. I do believe this is a woman's book and I would recommend it for a good read and for the insight it may provide on the way black women were treated as domestics back in the 50's and 60's.
Where Were You in '62? March 12, 2010
Lady Abigail (Dallas, TX, USA)
The Help brought back to mind the time my mother and I went shopping at Fort Worth's Monnig's Department Store in the early '60s. I vividly remember drinking from the Colored water fountain and being disappointed that the water was the same old color as always. Mother explained what the sign really meant, and thus I was introduced to The Way Things Are.
Skeeter Phelen accepts her privileged status as just the way things are. Growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, she has no idea that her family's Negro maid might feel anything but gratitude for her employers. Even a degree from Ole Miss fails to educate her to the plight of Blacks in America. But returning home opens her eyes to the arrogance of her peers and the longsuffering of a group of black women she has always taken for granted. Two maids, Aibileen and Minny, courageously agree to tell their stories to Skeeter for inclusion in a written exposé that Skeeter hopes to submit to a New York publisher. Their collaboration breaks down the barriers between the classes, and convinces them all that they have more in common than they thought.
Kathryn Stockett writes her story in three distinct voices--Skeeter's, Aibileen's and Minny's. Her expert depiction of Southern dialect adds flare to an already gripping story. I even read parts aloud in order to savor the flavor of the South.
This book is an excellent read, one I will come back to again and again.
 A little slow, but nice story. March 12, 2010
camdensmom (MD)
I sort of liked the idea for this book, but it certainly wasn't riveting. The characters are one-dimensional, the plots are missing key pieces and it also ended rather abruptly and I felt like I didn't have as much closure as I might have liked.
Despite quibbles, does everything I want a book to do March 12, 2010
2manymammals (Philadelphia, PA)
I want some very specific things out of the books I read. I want the story to outweigh the writing. I want to hear the voice of the writer or the characters so clearly that I feel the urge to read out loud. I want the book to be unafraid to have a moral, and I want to learn something. And if I don't feel as though reading it is work, that's all to the good.
The Help accomplishes all those things. I made the mistake of picking it up, midway through the book, after waking up at 2 a.m., and that was about it for my night's sleep (the last book that did that to me was the final Harry Potter). This is a great book club book; it's substantial but very readable, and your group will have lots to talk about. It's serious but compassionate and funny. All the characters are nuanced; even the villains have some good qualities. (Yes, early on Skeeter reflects on how Hilly has always been honest and always had her back. Things do go downhill after that, though.)
Now the quibbles: this book does rely on the tired formula of the righteous white person coming to the rescue of the noble African Americans. And I have to expect that white people will find it easier to love than black people. I can understand why it would seem presumptuous for a white woman to have written from the perspective, and in the dialect, of a black maid, but I'm glad that Kathryn Stockett dared to go there. This is an extremely enjoyable, enlightening, and, I think, respectful and loving book about a subject that we all should discuss.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1768
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