Book Review: The Help

  

After inhaling Summer by Wharton, I felt the immediate need to embrace a new read. I thought about going the more "canonical" route (since most of them are free on amazon kindle), but instead opted for something a bit more current - The Help by Kathyrn Stockett. It is apparently her first published work and I have no doubt there will me more great reads to come. I was also incentivized to read this novel because I knew the movie was coming out soon. Susan had read it much earlier and raved about it, so I thought I'd just hop on the popular literary bandwagon.

The novel was superb. One of the main characters, Skeeter, was a hilarious sketch of an awkard, but self-confident young woman who needs the guidance of The Help  in order to help make a difference in the small (and considerably racist) town of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60s.

I found myself sacrificing sleep to read "just a few more pages" and I feel certain this is how you know you're reading something very special. It may not be the perfect picture of realism or literary modernity or typify any other notable literary theories, but it was entertaining and heart-warming - which is sometimes just what this little bookworm needs. It is, after all, fun to read something that is written well and entertaining. So, hail to enjoyable reads--those welcomed pages of escape and adventures just waiting to be discovered.