The Help by Kathryn Stockett*AP

Christmas break was absolutely amazing. I actually had time to READ over said break. I didn't even have to stress over it or anything. It was fabulous. So for Christmas, I got The Help. Honestly, I chose to read it because the movie is nominated for five Golden Globe awards and hopefully will be nominated for Oscars. As soon as I started to read I was worried. The book is stream of consciousness. I thought "Not more Faulkner! This stinks!" I was wrong. The Help makes me appreciate the way Faulkner writes. I realised that stream of consciousness doesn't have to stink. This book helped me look into the lives of people I would never in a million years be able to understand. Not only did the book take place in the '60s, but the racial tension between blacks and whites was at a disturbing level. It disgusted me. I think I took from this book everything I was supposed to. It just seemed so unfair that the poor maids would get nothing but trouble through all of their effort. I found myself wanting to punch many of the characters multiple times. How could they think this way?! I pulled myself back, thought about the time period, was still disgusted as I tried to understand, but I took hold of the hope that was presented in this book. Mae Mobley, Miss Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny. They gave me hope. Mae Mobely was disliked by her own mother. I could cry just at that, but her nanny sweet (black) Aibileen would tell her everyday "You is kind, You is smart, You is beautiful." Mae Mobely learned that "Green Martian Luther King" was disliked just because he was green. Mae Mobely even saved Aibileen's job for her by not telling her father that Aibileen had been teaching her about equality. Did I mention that Mae Mobely is 5? Miss Skeeter writes Help, a book about the lives of Mississippi maids. Though her reasons are selfish in the beginning (first she "borrows" the idea from Aibileen's dead son and she only starts writing it because she wants to get in good with a big time publicist), she soon learns that the way maids are treated is horrible and actually begins to believe in her cause. She ends up caring more about just the book; she starts to care about people. She was very close to her old maid, Constantine. Skeeter was separated from her for reasons unknown to her and us for most of the book, and she took this thought with her as she wrote the Help. She wrote for Constantine and all of the other maids that loved their white babies and lost them to the prejudice of Jackson Mississippi's culture. Miss Skeeter helped people in Mississippi see what they do to their maids. The ones who love their maids are happy; the ones who don't are angry when they read what their maids have said about them. (Even though they aren't even sure if the maids of Jackson wrote the book) Aibileen cared for her white babies so deeply that she was like their second mother. Mae Mobely told Aibileen that she was her real mother. Aibileen tried to bring Mae Mobely up to realise that different colours are not impure, different colours make people different only to the eye. What lies within the heart is the more accurate way to judge a person. Aibileen is unjustly fired because of a lie  told by the worst woman on earth, Hilly Holbrook. That last thing Aibileen says is that her son always said there'd be a writer in the family. She supposed it had to be her. We end with hope that she will become a writer, because we know that she wrote her section of Help herself. Minny is a back talking maid who gets fired constantly, but she is also the best cook in Jackson. Everyone knows this. She finds a job with an out of touch woman called Celia Foote, and she learns to actually trust white people. Through the duration of the book, each actually saves the life of the other. Celia and her husband Johnny offer Minny a job for life. Minny also finds the strength to leave her abusive husband Leroy. The Help is filled with more hope than what I have mentioned. It is dark at times, it is suspenseful, it is hopeful. Don't get me wrong, this book  does not end with everything changing and everyone happy. Aibileen is out of a job, Mae Mobely has lost her mother figure, Skeeter lost her boyfriend, and Hilly is still the leader of the town, but it is apparent that times are changing in Mississippi. even though many problems go unresolved in this book, enough little changes are made for the reader to have at least a little hope for the future at the end of it. Now I must end this blog, but if I have time I am going to write a movie review because I have so much to say about the movie.