The Help Review

The Help by Kathryn Stockett  

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

The Help is told from three perspectives. There’s Skeeter the white girl who has dreams bigger than marrying and having children which makes her an outcast to her friends. Writing a housekeeping column on a local newspaper to gain experience, Skeeter first properly interacts with Aibileen and this along with the disappearance of her own maid gives Skeeter the idea for a book. It’s important to know that though Skeeter is a good person she doesn’t see the way the maids are being treated and automatically think to help them, she writes the book to impress an editor of a publishing company.  But as the story develops we see Skeeter develop and she becomes a heroine as she starts to realise the truth, she does have a lot of courage to out her friends knowing she will have no life in her hometown after the book comes out.   

Aibileen is a maid who specialises in taking care of children but things inside her are changing after the death of her son. She things at first there isn’t much hope for the book and the risk is too high but her son was writing a similar story and so she decides to help Skeeter. Aibileen and Mae Mobley’s story was both sad and sweet and it really made you think; the person you raise as your own will soon grow up and be brainwashed and they’ll treat you badly.

Minny was one of my favourite character, she was just so brave and sassy and her attitude to help everyone except herself made me feel for her. Her and Celia’s relationship was the best thing and how they helped each other really developed their characters and understanding of each other. The pie scene – it’s both disgusting and funny.

As the book develops more characters are introduced and not all of them are good or bad; it shows there are many sides to a person.

As a side note I’ve watched the movie and I loved it! The changes for the adaptations I understood and the cast was really good.  

★★★★☆