Book review of The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

There are many pleasures in life and one of those is finishing a really good book. I have been known to devour books but unfortunately I don't seem to find the time as much as I'd like these days. Having read the texts I needed to for work I turned to a book I bought quite a while ago that keeps being recommended to me. It's The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. I am sure I have come late to this book but it is one I will certainly be reading again, and trying to see the film soon too.


One of my favourite books of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee and The Help shares a few of the same themes and settings and contextual points. It is even mentioned on more than one occasion in the novel. The story revolves around three key characters, the white Miss Skeeter and the two black help, Aibileen and Minnie. Three vastly different characters who come together with a common aim. The story that they weave is one of huge differences and obstacles but also the beginnings of the shift in attitudes and a change in relationships. One extremely poignant and heart breaking thread of the plot is the relationship between Aibileen and the seventeenth white child she is raising, Mae Mobley. As a Mum I cannot wrap my mind around having another person raise my child while I played the society lady. I guess it is no different to the staff who raised the children in Victorian Britain. There is the difference that Victorian nannies and governesses were respected and treated with civility and afforded a proper place in the household, whereas the maids in the novel are treated with contempt and disgust on the whole.


Stockett has a quality in her writing that draws you in, creates characters and settings that are alive and breathing and evolving constantly. There are moments of heartbreak and moments of light relief, especially when the character of Minnie is on the scene! The first person narrative voice switches between the three main characters. This is essential in order to build up the threads of the plot and begin to intertwine the stories of the characters but it does at times take a moment to work out which character has taken over the narrative when it has changed. This is the only negative comment I have to say about the book. It is definitely one I'd thoroughly recommend, it kept me interested from start to finish and regularly resulted in late nights and tired days. As a debut novel it is an absolute triumph and I look forward to seeing what Stockett follows it with.