Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

15 reviews

k_winchester's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.5

I know I'm like a decade and half 'late' to this book but here we finally are. 😂 

Call it 3.5???? I guess???

Tbh, very conflicted on how to rate this. I really enjoyed reading it overall - it drew me in, I really enjoyed reading so much of it and found myself thinking about it a lot while I wasn't reading it and staying up waaay too late to read just a little bit more. There's alot of beautiful parts and beautiful things here.

But... there were also a lot of problematic things (not even counting the extremely problematic things I've now seen about the book and author - which I didn't know before/somehow missed when this book first came out and was crazy popular). But problematic things that I noticed like... pretty well every female black character is described as being large/fat. (Like there's no other body type for a black woman? If one was described, I missed it.) The way the language was written/the flow for Abileen and Minny was initially a little hard to get into, but once I got it, it was unique and interesting HOWEVER when I realized the author was a white lady (again, didn't know this going into reading or if i did know once upon a time, have since forgot) and it felt reallllly not okay for a white woman to be doing that. There was also a bit of a white savior element to the story at several points, which again was reallllly not great to see. Among some other technically "smaller" things that nonetheless made me go "yikes". 

Without writing an entire essay (...too late? 🙃) there was *a lot* to appreciate, enjoy, empathize, laugh, have deep heartbreak over, and a lot of really good message that I can't discount - I actually loved a lot of it (hence the higher rating). BUT there were also a lot of Not Good things - mainly being that a privileged white lady is the one presenting them, which is sooooo YIKES - that I absolutely can't discount that either.

I guess... split the difference, and call it a tentative, super conflicted 3.5, I guess??? 😅😅😅

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Cancer, Grief, Sexual assault, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Violence, Mental illness, Death, and Excrement

kierakarlenzig's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Murder, and Emotional abuse

rchulin1's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Cancer, Death, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Grief, Sexism, Violence, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Medical content, Terminal illness, Child abuse, Classism, Racism, Self harm, Chronic illness, Body horror, Alcohol, and Blood

purplehulk713's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Aibileen, Skeeter, and Minny remind me of all of the lines that I want to cross that I am either afraid to or cannot given my own conscience. Their surreptitious journey to express their very real struggles is so inspiring, frustrating, and heartbreaking. You will all grow to hate Hilly Holbrook just as much as I did. You hate her initially, but trust me. Each of the three women narrators seems to embody a different witness at this time, and this book (in the sense of the reader’s novel and the book that the characters are writing) is their testimony. They are testifying to the fact that 

There is so much you don't know about a person. I wonder if I could've made her days a little bit easier, if I’d tried. If I’d treated her a little nicer. Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.

Taking care of someone means recognizing who someone is completely—where they come from, how they grew up, and how they relate to themselves and others because of that. We can’t place our own desires before the people we take care of or project our own needs, desires, or expectations upon them because that would reject their personhood to assume that our needs and expectations are worth more. The lines are not there, we draw them every day.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Blood, Child death, Excrement, Racism, Pregnancy, Grief, and Hate crime

jhbandcats's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was really hard for me to read because I grew up in the Jim Crow South and so much of the story was familiar in a shameful way. The author is masterful at telling a painful but hopeful tale of relationships between white employers and Black housekeepers at a time when all the power was on one side of the equation. 

The story is compelling and funny and awful all at the same time. The characters, even the minor ones, are fully developed. Some are despicable and some are lovable, some are angry or timid or miserable or hopeful, and all are given a voice. 

That was such a terrible period in America and I’m appalled and frightened by the resurgence of racist fear mongering. Like most books that teach an important lesson about humanity, this is likely to be read by the people who need it least and not at all by the people it would benefit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Miscarriage, Alcoholism, Cancer, Classism, Excrement, Grief, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

trudy_joan's review against another edition

The only time I actually finished this book I was about 12, and it was the first time I read it. I remember how terribly disappointed I was with it, but I don’t remember why. Now I read the first half of the book about once a year and never finish it. I’ll probably try it again next year. If I’m going to read a book on this topic I much prefer To Kill a Mockingbird. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Miscarriage, Blood, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Grief, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Death, and Emotional abuse

kate_has_book_thoughts's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Racism, Infertility, Excrement, Blood, Physical abuse, Grief, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Hate crime, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Bullying, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Police brutality, Sexism, Classism, and Gun violence

michaelion's review against another edition

emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My opinion might be biased. Of the few movies me and my mom have watched together in my life, I could probably count them on one hand, this was one we both loved when it was available On Demand on Dish or DirectTv or whichever one of those cable providers had that service. The next year I bought the book at the Scholastic book fair, one with a cover from the movie poster, and I read that book six times. The spine is worn out and the edges of the cover are all bent up because I used to try to carefully put it in my backpack, but I haven't carried a backpack since sixth grade, so all my backpacks were actually big bags / purses anyone could see from a mile away, so of course my homework and any books I carried would slide and get smooshed and wrinkled and folded up if I dropped something in there and it landed wrong.

I don't know what impact this book left on me. I assume an important one. I still love the book despite the controversy, maybe also in spite of it. My grandmother was born in Jackson. She and Mae Mobley would've been a week apart, if they were both alive and real, respectively. Her side of the story, what would've been my grandmother's I mean, isn't shown, but maybe someone story she would've known was. Maybe her auntie or cousin or someone who she went to church with, had her mother not moved out of the South before she was three months old. I don't know. The story's very real. Whether or not it connects to you personally, who doesn't have a soft spot for those?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Racism, Excrement, Grief, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Violence, Miscarriage, Vomit, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Death, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Alcohol, Bullying, Cancer, Child death, Child abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Fatphobia, and Misogyny

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Hate crime, Police brutality, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Dementia, Infidelity, Homophobia, Mental illness, and Suicide

janetpollert's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism and Miscarriage

Minor: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Murder, Police brutality, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts

daisiesandbees's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Police brutality, Racism, Racial slurs, Hate crime, Grief, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse

Minor: Death, Violence, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Slavery