Summary of the book The Help

[Grace]

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a very engrossing book about what it is like to be a black maid in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. Aibileen Clark is one of those back maids and she is soft-spoken and always does exactly what she is told to do, but after her son dies, something inside of her changes. She realizes she doesn't feel so accepting of everything going on anymore. Aibileens' best friend Minny Jackson has trouble keeping a job because she can't keep her mouth shut, always back-talking all of her bosses, until she finds a boss who is unlike any of the other ones she has had before, leaving Minny completely bewildered. And Skeeter Phelan has just came back from college, wanting to pursue her writing career, and see her friends again, but things have changed since she left. Her maid, whom she loved ver much, has disappeared and no one has told her where, and her mother is upset that she has not found a husband yet. But, together, these three women join to try to make a change through a book about what it's like to work as a black maid working in a white home. Through the process, risks are taken and secrets come out as Aibileen, Skeeter, and Minny hope that something good can come out of this whirlwind of ups and downs that come at them while trying to write this surprising yet shocking book that all of Jackson will read. The Help was a really hard book to put down because they kept ending on cliff hangers and I kept wanting to read on to figure out what happened next. This book is very descriptive, I felt I was actually living through all of this with Minny, Skeeter, and Aibileen. I thought Kathryn Stockett did a great job of developing her characters and she moved the plot along very well, while also having a clear and direct theme that everyone can relate to. Overall, I thought this was an excellent book that I thoroughly enjoyed and I would recommend it to everyone who loves a good laugh and the occasional tear.