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A review by kamrynkoble
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
5.0
There are so many reviews for this book and I'm so enraptured with this work that this is going to be more of a gush/chat/essay than a review. We're not going to prance around spoilers, we're not going to waste time summarizing, we're going to jump right in and see if I can sort out the thousands of jumbled thoughts I have about this brilliant book.
I am still convinced that Kathryn Stockett is a genius. I have lost sleep trying to pin-point what it is exactly about her writing that makes 550ish pages seem too short. Her narration is brilliant, her voice is perfection, the plot is flawless without any big wars or dramatic death, or any romance that doesn't serve as a different device. It's not hard to see why this is The Book Club Book of America. I would sit alone until two in the morning devouring hundreds of these pages in the blink of an eye. I am a veracious reader and this is hardly ever the case. Let alone on the third time reading something.
I first discovered The Help in fifth grade. What I remembered from it was Two-Slice Hilly and Miss Celia's baby. I also loved all three of the voices even then, but didn't get much out of it past an entertaining and scandalously-adult book. In 2015, the themes of race stuck out to me more. I honestly can't say I was close to anyone who is black at that point in my life, and my only thoughts about civil rights came from American Girl books and history class. It was eye-opening and still engaging. This third time, I picked up so much more than just the infamous pie and racism. This book is not purely about blacks versus whites and the injustice in the disgustingly racist Mississippi during the 1960s.
There are not enough positive words in the world to describe how powerful the themes are. Yes, Minny and Aibileen are black and Skeeter is white. This changes how they think and speak and interact with their universe; however, they are so much more than caricatures of their race to make one pure statement.
Through Minny's story, we as readers are confronted with spousal abuse, educational rights versus working out of necessity, miscarriages, pregnancy and motherhood, and the made-up lines dividing society. As Ceila is ostracized from the society - for being white trash, not for being a different race - a separate prejudice deepens more than a simple blacks-are-bad mindset of the south. The middle-class white women hate anyone who isn't like them, or threatens their stubborn, bigoted place in the world. I also love that Stockett included the physical abuse. It makes Minny a round character; it breaks her away from the no-nonsense-hardened-sass-mouthing woman we know into a weak, cowering child who hates how she can't stand up to her husband where she can to anyone else in the world. Her survival and self-revelation is beautiful. Minny Jackson is real, she's fascinating, and a spectacular example for crafting characters.
Oh, Aibileen. Her interaction with the white child Mae Mobley, and the girl's with her mother, is perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of the book. Aibileen's heartache over her son who died carelessly at the hands of white men is only heightened by Elizabeth Leefolt's rejection of her young daughter. The unconditional love between this maid and the child is pure in every sense of the word. She states herself, "I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning." Aibileen is so powerful in her quiet, faithful love.
Skeeter was the most "comfortable" for me to read. She's white, like the author and I both are. Not to mention that she dreams of being a writer and is highly self-motivated and rebellious in her thoughts. I learned with Skeeter as she realized just how terrible matters are in Jackson and how safe her own life is. Watching her go from indulging in Hilly's alarming manipulation and Elizabeth's spindly, desperate behavior to thinking for herself and making a huge impact on her world is a triumph. I love that she doesn't end up with a man, and yet, opens her heart up nonetheless. She's powerful without being impenetrable. Skeeter's story also comes with cancer in a parent and watching a loved one slip away in the midst of her own heartbreak. I can't count the amount of times my eyes brimmed with tears, but when the pastor gave a signed copy of the book for Skeeter. . . The unity she finds with all of the women who take part in the book is breathtaking.
I have to mention Gone With the Wind. It's referenced multiple times, by all sorts of characters. It's irony at its finest when characters like Hilly don't realize that the only difference between their world and Scarletts' is a couple dollars and a white uniform. To justify writing about the colored help, Skeeter herself says, "Nobody ever asked Mammy in Gone With the Wind how she felt about it." The perspective feels fresh decades later.
Many of the negative reviewers didn't like the dialect of the maids while the white women spoke perfect English; first off, that's just false. Celia had her own dialect, and it's much easier to write how Aibileen and Minny speak (exchanging correct words for real, but incorrectly used words, or omitting some altogether) than to write in a southern drawl that makes people bang their heads on a table. Not to mention that Aibileen and Minny both dropped out of school to be maids and support their families. Skeeter has a double major in English.
This book is almost more important now than ever before. When Yule May is shoved onto a police car and bludgeoned over the head, I don't think I've ever wept harder so suddenly in my life. We've come so far, but we have so far to go. I can't encourage you to read this book enough.
I am still convinced that Kathryn Stockett is a genius. I have lost sleep trying to pin-point what it is exactly about her writing that makes 550ish pages seem too short. Her narration is brilliant, her voice is perfection, the plot is flawless without any big wars or dramatic death, or any romance that doesn't serve as a different device. It's not hard to see why this is The Book Club Book of America. I would sit alone until two in the morning devouring hundreds of these pages in the blink of an eye. I am a veracious reader and this is hardly ever the case. Let alone on the third time reading something.
I first discovered The Help in fifth grade. What I remembered from it was Two-Slice Hilly and Miss Celia's baby. I also loved all three of the voices even then, but didn't get much out of it past an entertaining and scandalously-adult book. In 2015, the themes of race stuck out to me more. I honestly can't say I was close to anyone who is black at that point in my life, and my only thoughts about civil rights came from American Girl books and history class. It was eye-opening and still engaging. This third time, I picked up so much more than just the infamous pie and racism. This book is not purely about blacks versus whites and the injustice in the disgustingly racist Mississippi during the 1960s.
There are not enough positive words in the world to describe how powerful the themes are. Yes, Minny and Aibileen are black and Skeeter is white. This changes how they think and speak and interact with their universe; however, they are so much more than caricatures of their race to make one pure statement.
Through Minny's story, we as readers are confronted with spousal abuse, educational rights versus working out of necessity, miscarriages, pregnancy and motherhood, and the made-up lines dividing society. As Ceila is ostracized from the society - for being white trash, not for being a different race - a separate prejudice deepens more than a simple blacks-are-bad mindset of the south. The middle-class white women hate anyone who isn't like them, or threatens their stubborn, bigoted place in the world. I also love that Stockett included the physical abuse. It makes Minny a round character; it breaks her away from the no-nonsense-hardened-sass-mouthing woman we know into a weak, cowering child who hates how she can't stand up to her husband where she can to anyone else in the world. Her survival and self-revelation is beautiful. Minny Jackson is real, she's fascinating, and a spectacular example for crafting characters.
Oh, Aibileen. Her interaction with the white child Mae Mobley, and the girl's with her mother, is perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of the book. Aibileen's heartache over her son who died carelessly at the hands of white men is only heightened by Elizabeth Leefolt's rejection of her young daughter. The unconditional love between this maid and the child is pure in every sense of the word. She states herself, "I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning." Aibileen is so powerful in her quiet, faithful love.
Skeeter was the most "comfortable" for me to read. She's white, like the author and I both are. Not to mention that she dreams of being a writer and is highly self-motivated and rebellious in her thoughts. I learned with Skeeter as she realized just how terrible matters are in Jackson and how safe her own life is. Watching her go from indulging in Hilly's alarming manipulation and Elizabeth's spindly, desperate behavior to thinking for herself and making a huge impact on her world is a triumph. I love that she doesn't end up with a man, and yet, opens her heart up nonetheless. She's powerful without being impenetrable. Skeeter's story also comes with cancer in a parent and watching a loved one slip away in the midst of her own heartbreak. I can't count the amount of times my eyes brimmed with tears, but when the pastor gave a signed copy of the book for Skeeter. . . The unity she finds with all of the women who take part in the book is breathtaking.
I have to mention Gone With the Wind. It's referenced multiple times, by all sorts of characters. It's irony at its finest when characters like Hilly don't realize that the only difference between their world and Scarletts' is a couple dollars and a white uniform. To justify writing about the colored help, Skeeter herself says, "Nobody ever asked Mammy in Gone With the Wind how she felt about it." The perspective feels fresh decades later.
Many of the negative reviewers didn't like the dialect of the maids while the white women spoke perfect English; first off, that's just false. Celia had her own dialect, and it's much easier to write how Aibileen and Minny speak (exchanging correct words for real, but incorrectly used words, or omitting some altogether) than to write in a southern drawl that makes people bang their heads on a table. Not to mention that Aibileen and Minny both dropped out of school to be maids and support their families. Skeeter has a double major in English.
This book is almost more important now than ever before. When Yule May is shoved onto a police car and bludgeoned over the head, I don't think I've ever wept harder so suddenly in my life. We've come so far, but we have so far to go. I can't encourage you to read this book enough.