Of the many things that I am lucky enough to do each month — many of which obviously keep me too busy to consistently write this blog (shame on me for breaking one of my own social media rules) — I get to take part in a book club with a number of open-minded and well-read female young professionals. I look forward to this get-together every month and highly anticipate the book selection, knowing that it is probably an extremely interesting book and something I most likely would not have found on my own.
While every book I have read since joining the club has been enjoyable, this month’s book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, was so good that I felt compelled to take to my blog and share it with the world.
The brief description of The Help on goodreads.com – a site that any book lover should sign up for and explore — is: “three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.” That barely does it justice. It is a story about race relations in Jackson, Mississippi, and how people – both Black and White – worked in their own way to bring civil rights to the people of their racist and stubborn southern town during the early 1960′s.
It tells the story of a young, female socialite raised by her Black maid, who after returning from college, strives to find her place in this world and at the same time correct the injustices that maids are forced to tolerate every day. At the same time, these women risk everything to tell their stories to this idealist young woman, for a book that might never be published, in hopes that the truth about their lives will come out and that it will change the way their children are treated.
Each maid’s story is artfully intertwined with the story of the White women in the town, illustrating the complex relationships between the women themselves, their families and the social standards that existed in the South during that time period. Despite the many stories being told, you never feel confused, except when Stockett’s amazing character development erupts into a moment of empathy for the very character you know you should dislike.
Even though I clearly love this book, I feel like I can barely do it justice by writing about it in this post, so I would highly recommend picking the book up and giving it a read!
