Well let me officially declare that I have joined the bandwagon of people who have read The Help and officially loved it. It was a fantastic story that was engaging and suspenseful in a way that I couldn't imagine. I seriously felt like cheering when I got to the last couple of chapters. I am not going to talk about the plot, since most people know it is about a white girl interviewing and writing about what it is like to be a maid in Mississippi in the 1960's.
The thing that I thought about most while reading this book though was how social lines still exist today no matter how much we wish they didn't. One of my favorite characters in the book was Minny and she worked for a girl who had been "white trash" and then married a rich guy. None of the other ladies want anything to do with her because of her background, but of course they would never give that reason. I just think about the judgements and assumptions we still make because of social class and/or race. Not that we are trying to build each class separate bathrooms, but we assume a lot about a person because of how they look or where they come from or how they dress. Sometimes those things impress us and sometimes we use that as a reason to not associate with them. The movie Crash that came out a couple years ago had this same effect on me. If you haven't seen it, you should. They even have edited versions of it. Anyways, I guess food for thought.
I now want to go see the movie. Perhaps I will do that this weekend. I am a little scared that the movie won't quite be able to capture the magic of the book, but here's hoping.
i just started reading this! the beginning was a little hard for me to get started but now having read your opinion i'm excited to keep reading! good thing i have two flights in the next week to read during
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