The Help... A Book review.

Apparently it is speed reading week around here...

Didn't you get the memo?

I have finished yet another book in double time. This one is my Book Club's Pick for the Month of May..

The Help

Oh...

My...

Gosh..

What a good read...

Loved Loved Loved it.. and that really is the best way isn't it...

I love to be totally sucked into a story right from the start.

( it doesn't always happen that way)

The Story takes place in Jackson Mississippi in the early 60's

The story lines varies from the perspective of two African American maids.. Abileen and Minny and a young white college graduate Skeeter.

Abileen still recovering from the recent death of her son, works for a young mother more interested in cow towing to the town gossip monger, then showing love and tending to her own children.

Minny a feisty often insolent domestic who loses many a job due to her acerbic tongue seems unbreakable to her friends and employers...but her home life and the abuse she must endure proves her life to be quite different.

Skeeter the young collage graduate who feels that the unspoken hierarchy in the south has reach a boiling point..and .comes up with an idea on how to make changes for everyone in her small town.... convincing the maids and their friends to submit stories ( Good.. Bad .. and Ugly ) about what what life is Really like working for their white mistresses...

They agree as long as everyone is under a pseudonym.

I am old enough to remember the race riots here in Detroit.. and the commonplace thinking of what the relationships of Blacks and Whites was..

There was none.

Little references to the culture of the times brought me right back..

Shake and Bake ads

Women smoking and drinking during pregnancy not even being blinked at, and yes even the idea of never eating at the same table as a black person were all common place.

The author did a fabulous job of painting each individual character... and spoke in their voices.

Once I picked this book up.. I really could not put it down. ( Again that does not happen very often)

I found myself smiling at some of the colorful antics that take place in the book..and will probably never again eat a slice of Chocolate Pie with thinking of this book.

A definite must read..

I know that a movie is in the works and in MY minds eye ....have already placed Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah in the main character roles.

Two thumbs up on this one.. I'd give it more but I only have two.

Hope you have a great weekend ... Mine will be extremely busy with Maria's Wedding shower... Update and Photos to follow.

Oh and don't forget...

RIF

READING .. is FUNdamental.

How's THAT for a 60's flashback !!