Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. (www.kathrynstockett.com)
As a reader, I usually am extremely picky. I don't enjoy books less than 150 pages, and I always stay away from historical fiction. I'm not exactly sure why, but somehow I feel that if things seem too real, I lose that story element. At the same time, however, I adore realistic fiction. Yes, I am truly and girl of contradictions.
But something about this book made me turn around my opinions. Maybe it was the beautiful cover, or the way the plot seemed to gently ease you in to the story. Yet I am inclined to believe that it was the way the author seemed to make the characters come to life. Three different voices, three distinct personalities all waltzed through my bedroom as I read late into the night. I came to recognize each one, from Aibleen's calm honesty, Skeeter's independent but sensitive opinions, to Minny's humorous logic.
Not only were the characters impeccable, the setting was so realistic. My grandmother worked in the NAACP in the North during the 60s, and I have grown up hearing stories of marches, meetings, etc. It was so eye-opening to hear the way African-Americans were treated in the South, and how sometimes the greatest offense is to commit no offense. Although this book doesn't require a box of tissues, its best to read it when you have time to think, because the emotions it stirs about human morals goes beyond tears. This is a must read for all!
Rating: 9.5/10
