I wasn't going to read this book. Something about its fast rise to popularity along with its quick step into the movie theater made me rather wary of it. It was only after numerous recommendations that I requested it from the library, and then I had to wait several weeks before it became available. All of that waiting, and I read it in two days. It's not a short book, and not overly easy read, I just couldn't put it down. My sleep suffered. Told from three different view points, The Help is a fictional story set in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights era. Skeeter is a young white girl, just home from college and living with her family on their cotten farm. She is troubled by what she sees around her, but initially reluctant to become involved. Looking for a way to break into the publishing world, she sets her sights on annonymously writing a book from the point of view of the black domestic workers in Jackson. To do so she enlists the help of Aibileen and Minny, both black domestic maids working for white members of the country club set. It's their voices, rich in dialect, and their stories, full of the culture and history of the era, that make this book deserving of non-stop reading. Well devloped characters and strong writing filled with the hate, shame, pride and hope of an era, will make it an enduring hit.
Book 34 on my way to 52 in 2011
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