Book Review: The Help

This book is excellent.  It is well written, it is inspiring, and it let's you experience the full gamut of emotions.  It makes you experience fear, hate, love, disgust, appreciation, loathing, admiration and hope.

While I enjoyed the book, I almost enjoyed the epilogue the best.  That is when Kathryn Stockett (the author) talks about being raised by a black maid herself.

She discusses her love and hate for Missisippi.  She also talks about the difficulty of trying to write about the feelings and thoughts of the black maids, when she herself is white.  She says "I don't presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the 1960s.  I don't think it is something any white woman on the other end of a black woman's paycheck could ever truly understand.  But trying to understand is vital to our humanity."

I appreciate an author who understands her own biases and lack of insight, and still tries to overcome them.  I think her book sounded very real and very accurate.  But what do I know about how a black maid in Mississippi felt?  I'm a white boy from Idaho.

I do know that Ms. Stockett wrote a great book, and I enjoyed it.  Here are some of my favorite quotes.

"And Miss Skeeter asking don’t I want to change things, like changing Jackson, Mississippi, gone be like changing a lightbulb."

"We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.”

"If I didn’t hit you Minny, who knows what you become.”
 - "It was the first time I'd ever really thought about it.  Who knows what I could become if Leroy would stop hitting me."

“I hope you write someting really good. Something you believe in.”

“Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.”

“All I'm saying is, kindness don't have no boundaries.”

“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”

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

“I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.”

This last one is funny because it's so true:
“When you little, you only get asked two questions, what’s your name and how old you is, so you better get em right.”