The Help

“Go find your life."

The Help, a surprise 2009 first novel written by newcomer Kathryn Stockett, follows the three intersecting 1960s lives of (you guessed it) three Mississippi women, with one being the kind and warmhearted Aibileen, an African-American maid working for a woman who couldn’t care less for her own child, the second being Skeeter, a white woman who decides to write a book chronicling black maids’ lives in the South, and Minny, yet another African-American maid, but also who, unfortunately, might just be the sassiest woman of all of Mississippi.

And that’s just one sentence, folks.

Now, when I started reading The Help, while intrigued, I didn’t really think much of it. “Oh, look: we have another novel echoing books akin to To Kill a Mockingbird (note: another civil rights-oriented book we had just read in class), and with the complete package newspaper cut-out characters, too,” I said to myself when glancing at the plot description hidden within the flaps of the hardcover copy I had bought.

And, “Wow, this is actually one of the most character-driven, brilliantly paced, and amazingly-realized books I’ve ever read,” was what I was saying by the end of it.

I don’t know about you, but I think I spot a bit of a difference between those two opinions there.

So, yes, since I already spoiled it, here it is: I absolutely adore The Help. At the beginning, it seemed perfectly fine enough (entertaining characters and some plot progression), however, as I kept reading and reading (higher stakes, lots of character development, and an overarching plot were introduced), and then eventually finishing it (rounded out characters that nearly seem real and a satisfying and brilliant ending), I couldn’t believe what I had read. Nothing is thrown in your face in this book: it doesn’t go for some obnoxiously blatant message, nor does it try to emotional manipulate you; it feels as if the characters were created at the beginning, and it just grew on from there. Not written, not plotted out, but… grew.

Down the long run, I think I very well will find some little nitpicks here and there I have with The Help, but, in the meantime, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the experience, no, the privilege that was reading this novel. A truly heart touching, masterfully-tended to story.

9/10- The Help’s story-line is akin to the growth of a tree: characters were planted gently into the ground, letting themselves grow and grow overtime, eventually turning into one novel that will stay in the hearts of many for years to come.