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Slide 1: ==== ==== Best seller! Describes life in Missippi in 1960. Down and gritty! http://astore.amazon.com/vkhocr-20 ==== ==== Flashplot: In many ways, The Help is a coming-of-age tale of a young woman, who due to her sheltered life, is coming of age in her twenties rather than her teens. Eugenia Phelan, unluckily nicknamed Skeeter, returns from college to her home in Mississippi with a degree and an aspiration to make it as a writer-but without a husband, which according to her mother, her friends, and her romantic interest was the only reason young southern women in the 1960s were supposed to go to college. While Skeeter struggles to find her new place in her old world, she stumbles upon a story that will shake that world to its roots: the story of the help. Alternating between the viewpoints of two black maids, mouthy Minny and heartbroken Aibileen, and that of young naive Skeeter, Stockett's first book takes on a variety of issues, including race, women's rights, spousal abuse, and childrearing. It's a book about women and women's issues, but appeals to readers of every gender due to its unique look at our country's history. As a reader: I was instantly taken in by Aibileen's honest narration in chapter one. For me, the dialect rang true, the story tugged at my heart, and the characters, though seemingly a world away from today's society, were easy to relate to. What parent and child haven't tested the theory "you can't go home"? What single person hasn't dealt with relatives or friends wondering what's taking her so long to settle down? Stockett made sure readers of all ages and both genders would be able to make connections to her characters. One can't help cheering on the small victories of the main heroines and reveling in the comeuppances of the book's bitches and racists. Apart from the wonderful characterization, were there flaws? Sure. Some parts were predictable, where others seemed a bit random and unbelievable, added in to drive character more than story development (most notably was the scene at Celia's with the naked invader). Also, without spoiling it, I'll just say the end was bothersome, but I'm a sap who often likes her book endings tied up with a pretty bow. None of these issues, though, detracted from the overall enjoyment of the book. As a writer: I was bound to like this book from the moment I heard Kathryn Stockett suffered through sixty rejection letters before selling this best-selling manuscript. That aside, Stockett deserves the praise she is now receiving. Sure, she took on too many deep issues to squeeze into a book this size. Each character's conflict and growth could have been a novel in its own right. While in some ways the depth of these characters enriched the book, at other times there were too many plotlines being strung along at once, leaving some underdeveloped. There were also some oddities that didn't seem to fit the overall tone Stockett seemed to going for; Skeeter's mother "curing herself" was a strange distraction from the rest of the plot. But for a debut novel, this was laudable. Stockett deftly uses the alternating narrations, repeating some scenes from different viewpoints, while adding suspense by making the reader wait to get the whole story in other instances. She also nails each character's voice, while doing justice to a dialect she heard her own help use growing up. And if she didn't quite have her readers sold on the verity of this historical fiction work by the end, she hits it home in her afterward when she tells her own tale of being
Slide 2: raised by a black woman in the South and how those experiences inspired her to write the novel. Bottom line: Go ahead and see the movie...after you've read the book. When Stockett writes her next novel, I'm guessing her stack of rejection letters won't hit double digits. I've always been an avid reader and loved sharing my opinions of the books I've read, but since completing my first two novels (not yet published) I have a greater appreciation for writers' craft and, perhaps due to my own struggles with the revision process, have also grown a bit more critical of what I read. My book reviews give me a chance to share what I loved (or loathed) as a reader and what I learned as a writer from the published authors whose books I'm reading. To see more visit The Nightstand page of my website at http://www.laurengrimley.com/On_the_Nightstand.html Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lauren_E_Grimley ==== ==== Best seller! Describes life in Missippi in 1960. Down and gritty! http://astore.amazon.com/vkhocr-20 ==== ====