I love reading and always have a few magazines and books next to my bed - I can't get to sleep before reading something. In the past I have even forced myself to finish books I am not enjoying but I have decided lifes too short for that nonsense and there are too many good reads to struggle through the bad ones.
A friend in the UK recommended 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett. Its brilliant. If you read and enjoyed the Secret Life of Bees, then this is a must. I haven't finished reading it yet, but I am literally gagging to get back to it!
A short synopsis: Set in deep South Mississippi in 1962, the book is written in the first person by the three main characters - Skeeter Phelan is a young white woman of privilege who enjoys the company of her fellow Junior Leaguers but sometimes finds their ways at odds with her own principles.
Minny, Aibileen, and Yule May are maids employed by Skeeter's friends. Each woman cooks, cleans, and cares for her boss's children, suffering slights and insults silently and sharing household secrets only among themselves. Skeeter longs to be a journalist and contacts a New York book editor with an idea. Soon she's conducting clandestine meetings with "the help" to capture their stories for publication. It is a bold and reckless plan, one that endangers not only the positions but the lives of the very women whose stories she transcribes - as well as her own.
I can't believe this is Kathryn Stockett's first novel. The Help is a charming and thoughtful story and especially pertinent for me as a South African.
Minny, Aibileen, and Yule May are maids employed by Skeeter's friends. Each woman cooks, cleans, and cares for her boss's children, suffering slights and insults silently and sharing household secrets only among themselves. Skeeter longs to be a journalist and contacts a New York book editor with an idea. Soon she's conducting clandestine meetings with "the help" to capture their stories for publication. It is a bold and reckless plan, one that endangers not only the positions but the lives of the very women whose stories she transcribes - as well as her own.
I can't believe this is Kathryn Stockett's first novel. The Help is a charming and thoughtful story and especially pertinent for me as a South African.
i totally know what you mean and have struggled through some awful books hoping by the next page turn things will get better, um....but nope. it doesn't. i didn't ever read the life of bees book but saw the movie and loved it! This recommendation sounds like a triumph of spirit, my fave thing ever. thanks so much for posting about it. ♥
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