The Help - Kathryn Stockett

My neighbor friend bought The Help by Kathryn Stockett and after reading it passed it along to share.  It's been on my bookcase for several months waiting to be opened.  I'll admit that the size of it scared me a bit, it's been a while since I've read a fat hardback and I wasn't too sure about it.  After feeling a bit of guilt for not getting to it yet, I picked it up one day last week.  I could not put it down, or at least I did not want to put it down! I've spent more time at home than usual with an under the weather child, so I was able to get more reading time than normal in.  Last night I came to the last page and was quite frankly a little sad.

The Help was about three ordinary ladies who lived in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960's.  Skeeter, a 22 year old white lady who had recently come home from graduating college.  Skeeter comes home to find that her beloved maid, Constantine, is no longer there and no one will tell her where she's gone.  Much to her mother's dismay, she was more interested in her typewriter than in finding a man.  Abiline is a black maid who is currently raising her seventeenth white child.  After loosing her only son a few years before, she's different.  She loves her little white girl even though she knows that both could end up with a broken heart.  Her best friend, Minnie is known about town as the sassiest maid in the area.  She's also the best cook in the town and that always was her saving grace, until she made the wrong woman mad that is.  These three women are as different as different can be, but something pulls them together in a way none of them would have ever imagined.  They set aside their own fears of very real consequences to prove that some lines are just meant to be crossed. 

I have always enjoyed reading books around this time period, and this one read like a classic.  I find it incomprehensible that people could behave and treat other people the way they did and yet it was actually  condoned.  I fell in love with all three of these ladies and their stories.  Brave doesn't begin to cover what these ladies were willing to chance to do something they believed in.  My only two complaints about the book were, one the use of God's name unnecessarily and two that it ended so abruptly.  I guess only the first complaint is legit; who ever wants to see a good story end!  If you have not picked this one up yet, I encourage you to do so.  

Now I'm off to start the first book in A Flower Shop Mystery by Kate Collins.  I've been looking forward to this series, but didn't want to start it until I had at least the first several on hand.   There are still two that I need, but they're in the middle of the 9 or 10 book series, so I'm good!   I also can't think of a better way to start my weekend than with a book and Dr. Pepper...happy reading to me!