Reading: The Help

This week I'm reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  This book was a New York Times best seller and was recently made into a movie with popular actress Emma Stone.  The book takes place in

  Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s.  The book is mainly written from three people's point of view.  Aibleen is a maid who has raised many children and most that were not her own.  Minny is known as the best cook in the entire town but her sharp tongue gets her fired often.  Skeeter is a white girl who is not very pretty and wants to be a writer while her mother just wants her to get married.  Skeeter is the one who actually writes this book from the point of view of the women who are employed in the households.

Aibleen works for Miss Leefolt and does most of her cooking and cleaning and also takes care of her seventeeth child Mae Mobley who is Miss Leefolt's daughter.  Miss Leefolt completely ignores her daughter and doesn't even change her diaper after Aibleen goes home for the night.  When Mae Mobley irritates Miss Leefolt trying to get attention Miss Leefolt yells at Aibleen for letting her baby bother her. 

The lady Minny had been working for had gotten so old that it was time for her to go into a nursing home.  The only reason Minny had worked for that woman for so long was because the woman was almost deaf and could not hear Minny's rude comments.  Minny finally found a job working for Miss Celia.  Miss Celia was very pretty but she was also very lazy.  Miss Celia did not want her husband to know she was hiring a maid.  Minny had to clean the very large house Miss Celia owned and give her cooking lessons.  Minny was paid $2.00 and hour working for Miss Celia which was twice Minny was getting paid before.  The strange thing about Miss Celia for this setting and the situation was how she treated Minny almost as an equal.  Minny still has not figured out why Miss Celia is that way and honestly thinks the situation is weird.  So far the book is great and the dialect really helps the story come alive.