The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
464 Pages in Hardback
Published: February 10, 2009
Dates Read: January 15-February 7th, 2016
My Rating: 5 Stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
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 review:
I read the book a few years ago. I highly enjoyed it. This was about the time the movie was released. I borrowed the book from a coworker who also loved it. I had also heard the audio book was very good. My local library had the audio book, so I decided to give it a listen. I am glad I did! When I read the book, I gave it 4 stars, the audio book I give 5 stars too! There are several narrators and they did a fabulous job! Listening to the audio book made me want to watch the movie again, so I borrowed it from the library as well.
The narrators in the audiobook bring the characters to life in a different way from just reading the book. I recommend listening to the audiobook!!!