Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 2536
 People I Know September 6, 2010
csquare6
The Help is a beautiful story of women I know. I have lived in a small southern town all of my life and I can only say that these women still exist.
Not only was The Help a trip down memory lane, it was a shock to realize that these lines kept women from sharing the simple comfort of talking with each other. The lines were drawn based simply on race and nothing more.
This is a wonderful book that made me ask, "What would life have been like if the lines were different?"
 drivel September 6, 2010
A critic
The only thing the book has going for it is plot momentum, but even there, as other reviewers have noted, several plot developments strain credulity. The "dialect", again as other reviewers have commented, is inconsistent and inaccurate. The characters are cardboard, each one animating a different stereotype. That said, the hapless white cracker and her husband are amusing. A better writer might have been able to develop the genuine issue at the heart of the book - the twisted and complicated relationships between white women and the black women who toil for them and their families.
 heavyhanded September 5, 2010
Amanda Stefansson (Scottsdale, Arizona)
The Help, although a good read, seemed heavy-handed in its morality, thick with forshadowing and stereotype, and neatly buttoned up at the end. It's interesting enough to finish, but not nearly interesting enough to recommend.
 An Alternate Opinion September 5, 2010
T. Smith (California wine country)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I grew up an hour's drive from Jackson, Mississippi, albeit a generation before that of Ms. Stockett, and this slight novel did not ring true in any way for me. I found the characters stock and unengaging, and the writing arch and contrived for cheap laughs. I was assured that I would recognize the characters, but I did not. The white women were a tiny bit more believable than the black women. The book's only real humor, for me, was in the parody of "high society" in the utterly provincial town of Jackson. I strongly suggest reading Eudora Welty to discover something more than the surface of Mississippi's shameful racist past (and present?).
A good comparison for this work would be John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces" which brilliantly succeeds in interpreting life in New Orleans. Fanny Flagg's work is far far funnier, and more real.
a look inward September 5, 2010
sharon bass
This book helped me look inward, to review my life and my personal growth over the years, I enjoyed reading the book.
I was so afraid as I read the book, MInnie and the others would be found out. True courage is the motivation to speak
out. I pray I have an understanding for all peoples suppressed in their life situations and that I may have compassion
and love for them. It is often one person or one situation at a time that brings about change. It may seem as if time is
standing still and no progress made, but time and God's will, not ours, will prevail.
Showing reviews 16-20 of 2536
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