The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help  

By kathryn Stockett 

Rating  : 5/5 

Genres : Historical Fiction

Enjoyed it but also learned a lot from this book!! The last few pages is whew .. it's hope alternating nervousness and apprehension! The times of 1960s as the black women who are domestic helps and housekeepers for white women saw it through their eyes. Very riveting! 

This book has transported me to the time  of early 1960s to Jackson, Mississippi where colored(black) people are the servants and housekeepers in white people's homes. Those were the times when thee were rules of segregation between the white and black people. Those were also the times when changes are slowly seeping in - through the courageous actions of Martin Luther king and others across America - allowing black people to share the same libraries, buses with white people. 

 The main characters in the book are a bunch of white and black women and how their daily lives are impacted when a white lady joins hands with black servants to publish a book on their lives as servants from the south. Its not all abuse and the like. There are some stories where the domestics are happy and grateful to their white employers, there are those where the discrimination is frowned upon and disgruntled.

Skeeter/Eugenia is a white woman who wants to become a writer. She decides to write about the lives and the injustices faced by black women as they struggle to make ends meet and also suffer from discrimination from their employers. She is a good,kind hearted woman who wants the laws and rules changed so that black people get a just and fair treatment. Aibeleen and Minnie are two black women who play a major role in bringing the other maids around to share  their stories and shape the story as it gets going into a nerve wracking territory where they all might get caught and their futures and families put in harm's way. 

I loved Minny and her choleric personality. Just like she is, her employer is also a naive and ignorant woman Celia that added spice to the story through her secretiveness and lazy, recluse personality. I loved Aibeleen's matured and balanced personality. I loved Skeeter's doggedness and determination against all odds to stick to her act.