Day #295 - Help

I just finished reading "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett (sorry in advance if you have not read the book and this post does not make sense). I will agree with my sisters assessment to the tune of: it was a good book, but not mind blowing. I am excited to see the movie now that I finished the book. I am trying to do that more often now...so far I need to see "One Day", "Atlas Shrugged" and now "The Help" - the books are building up.

What I liked about the book - I liked reading from the perspective of the different characters...I wish we could have seen it from Elizabeth's point of view or Hilly's - they were the darker side to the book or maybe even Stuart's. It would be hard to write from a racist point of view I suppose, but it might be interesting to be in the head of someone who believes a persons skin makes them more susceptible to disease and who truly believes in the rightness of segregation just to try and understand their perspective.

I didn't love how the book ended. I think it all ended kind of abruptly...I don't like loose ends. I also don't like that Celia never made friends with Skeeter...why not? Some of the stuff made the white people seem so stupid...I guess they were, but I also wanted the book to have more of an effect then it did. I wanted to know that Stuart read it and how he felt about it afterward, I wanted Skeeter's mom to secretly discover the manuscript and confront her with it at the end when they are talking about their old maid...I guess I want to have written the book!! :)

It was interesting to find out the author of "the Help" grew up with a maid like the ones portrayed in the book. Can you imagine growing up that way? I guess it happens all the time still today doesn't it? She can't be that much older than me. The Civil Rights Movement seems so long ago - it is hard to believe how awful it might have been to be old enough during that time to choose one way or the other and then to live through the consequences of said decision...I want to believe I would make the uniting choice and not the segregating one.

Maybe one day our kids will look back on our lives and say, "wow, that time during the economic downturn in President Obama's day was bleak...wouldn't have wanted to live thru that time period; your generation must have been really brave" Somehow I doubt that will be the case.

I Am Grateful,
HB

Diva Quote: "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Aibileen from The Help