The Help Review

Paperback, 444 Pages
Adult/ Historical Fiction
By: Kathryn Stockett
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

“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.”

6 years ago when I joined the book community, I did what every bookworm does at one point in their life and started googling lists with books that everyone should read and this book was on many of those lists. My friend from uni also watched the movie and told me it was good. I found a copy at the local book store and bought it but just couldn’t make myself read it.

Suddenly, I was starting to see a wave of hatred for this book and people changing their rating of the book so I thought there was some recent drama with the author but obviously there wasn’t and it was just part of the woke culture. After reading the book and watching the movie, I can’t see why it is such a huge deal for many readers. I mean it is not the best book out there nor it is the most well written but God knows I read so much worse books.

I read a bit in the book, I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style so I watched the movie and then continued the book which was easier. I think the problem of many readers is that this is not Stockett’s story to tell but if you read the afterword and acknowledgment section you can see that she was telling her story indeed. A story of a white woman that was raised by a black help and saw all kind of unfair treatment to her. I believe Stockett’s intentions were good and she wasn’t doing it out of maleficence or harm to any group. And I don’t think money was at the heart of it as she hasn’t published anything since.

Summary: The Help is an average story writing wise with okay writing and characters that are stereotyped -both black and white characters- I think the author was trying to deliver a good message with the plot and she partially succeeds in doing it. I think it is important to keep in mind how the author herself is white but had a black help just like the white protagonist.