Yes, I have always loved reading and have done a number of different programs and been in a few book groups so it's not really a stretch for me to thing that I have a good opinion about books. Especially since I have an opinion about everything, right? :) Either way I hope you like this new addition and I can't wait to share some of the things that I have been reading with you. I also hope to have guess book opinions too. That should be fun.
For our first book review I chose a book that has been all over the airwaves lately. Not because it just came out but because it's being turned into a movie that comes out in a few weeks. That's right I am talking about The Help by Kathryn Stockett.
The Help is a fictional book roughly based on African-American maids in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960's and what their lives might have been like. Stockett, who grew up in Jackson and had an African-American maid/nanny during this time gives an interesting and entertaining look into the good, bad and just ridiculousness of her three main characters lives.
In the book, Miss Skeeter, upset because of a suggestion from one of her friends decides to write a book about the truth of African-American maids in white homes. Driven by the love that she had for her maid she reaches out to Aibileen the only real maid that she knows and together along with Minny another maid they put together a book that blows a lid off some of the souths best kept secrets.
Each character; Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter (Eugenia), each get a chance to tell how working on the book affects them as the story is written in the first person. You get not only a look into their working lives but their family lives and the lives of each community. The separation of the 60's is clear but what also is clear is that there was a lot of love and togetherness also. That friendships and bonds can be created across any line, racial or otherwise, during even the most unlike of times and places, namely the civil rights movement and the deep south.
As an African-American woman at first some of the information was hard for me to stomach. An example would be when Aibileen takes about making .95 an hour and only bringing home $172 a month. Of course I knew that for that time that was more or less accurate but just the thought. I was however impressed that she was able to have a home on this salary considering when I found my first real full-time job I was making $14,000 a year and couldn't rent an apartment.
Yet once I moved past my own issues I saw the story for what it is, a reminder that although we may not be the same we aren't exactly all that different either and that we can love each other just as strongly as we can love anyone else. The author quoted one of the lines in the book that
remind us off this point.
"Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought."
I would definitely recommend this book and I do plain to see the movie and I might even take my cheap butt to the theater to see it. Sure I will end up paying more that $.95 but I also don't bring home $172 a month. Glad times have changed but as the saying goes, "those that don't know the history are bound to repeat it". Thanks Kathryn for making sure we remember our history.
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