"The Help" have you read it??

[RUDisney]

If you liked that book, please read Mudbound and then read The Color of Water.

Mudbound takes place after WWII in Mississippi on a tenant farm. It is written in different voices, like The Help. I read that first and everyone recommended The Help. SUCH a great read!

I finished The Color of Water just a few weeks ago. It is about a black man who grows up with a white mother who is completely color blind when it comes to people. It scares him sometimes because he fears that his mother will be hurt walking alone through Harlem as he gets older. It is told in flashbacks to her childhood. Very moving. My favorite line is when the boy asks his mother what color God is and she tells him that God is the color of water.

 

[Briarmom]

Read it twice.
Right away when it came out and then about a year ago when I moved here and joined a new book club.

Great read.

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

If you liked that book, please read Mudbound and then read The Color of Water.

Read them both & agree 100%!

 

[Cindy's Mom]

I read it about a month ago and this is by far one of my favorite books.

While reading this, I felt like I was reading a Civil War era novel, then....someone would talk about a car or a modern appliance, and I was like DANG....this book takes place in the 60's. Unbelievable.

Also admiting that I'm an idiot....I say Bryce Dallas on Chelsea Lately the other night - they were mainly talking about those vampire movies and then as a sidebar, she said she was playing Hilly in The Help (I squeled with joy)....I had no idea this was Ron Howard's daughter. Cool

 

[HM]

I just finished "The Help" a few days ago & it really made an impact on me?

Did anyone else read it? What did you think?

I had looked at it several times at the book store, but always passed it by because the jacket blurbs didn't appeal to me. Then my book club chose it, so I got a copy. Ended up loving it (right from the start of the book, too). I was really glad that they chose it, otherwise, I'm sure I'd never have read it.

 

[kinntj]

I loved it! I wanted it to go on more with Minnie. I loved that character and wanted to hug her. It made me so emotional.

I would love to see how they put a movie together from that.

Thanks for the other book recommendations! I'll have to add those to my list.

 

[IHeartTink04]

I read it and loved it too!

 

[Pixiedust34]

While reading this, I felt like I was reading a Civil War era novel, then....someone would talk about a car or a modern appliance, and I was like DANG....this book takes place in the 60's. Unbelievable.

I'm reading it now! I'm about halfway through the book and I am enjoying it. The plot is well done and it's a well-written story. It's the type of book that'll be remembered for a long time after reading it.

I agree that it feels like it is a story that would take place in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Those reminders of cars and space exploration jolt me into remembering that this is a story of modern times!

There is a book for young readers called Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry that will leave you with the same heartfelt emotions as when reading The Help.

 

[EeyoreEma]

It was such a wonderful book - definitely brought tears to my eyes several times. It truly was one of the best books I've read in ages. I've recommended it to everyone I know.

 

[bawsmom]

Great book!! I hope the book will do it justice

 

[Mimi1965]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454029/

Here is the cast so far.

I am a voracious reader-about 2 books a month-always from the library

This is the first book I've bought in years-I intend to re-read it. It is a jewel.

 

[Kathi OD]

add me to the list of those that really enjoyed reading it. one of the best books I've read in a while.

 

[wilma-bride]

I also really enjoyed the book, it was a real eye-opener and I also found parts of it very upsetting.

According to a programme I watched on TV here in the UK a few months ago, some of that crap IS still going on - for those who are interested, it was a Jamie Oliver food special where he was travelling around the US. The episode in question was filmed in Georgia.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?...endId=171184815&blogId=537378584&swapped=true

I am sooo excited its all new fresh faces in the lead parts!
People Magazine had an article when the book first came out wanting Anne Hathaway & Oprah for the leads....blech

wilma-bride-I dont know where in Georgia your chef was-but this book occurs in early 1960's when there were seperate bathrooms for whites and blacks-and that is one of the key occurances-the main character builds an "out house:" so her maid isnt using the inside toilet-please tell me where he found that?

Just for clarity, I have 'bolded' the word I used in my original post - I never said it was exactly the same as in the book, only that there were still some places where certain things, such as were described int he book, still went on.

 

[clarabelle]

I read the book too.
I enjoyed it.

But.... I grew up in GA. My Mother did too she would have been a young mother in the 60s.
I can't imagine my mother, MIL aunts etc... ever acting that way. I did discuss the book with them. They knew no-one that had help that they treated like that. My MIL would have been well-off at that time (not rich but middle class like some of the women in the book) She had weekly help but cooked and cleaned and had a garden and raised her children she did not spend all her time going to Jr. League meetings.

As I child (I was born in the 60s) I never went to someone's house that had a bathroom in the garage for the maid,

I am not saying that it never happened. I know it did. I just wouldn't want anyone to think that all southern white women in the 60s had that life.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Okay, I'll go ahead and say it. I didn't like this book and was regretful I spent $10 on the Kindle version. It was another White-Person-Realizes-An-Underclass-Exists-Feels-Great-Guilt-Becomes-A-Hero book. Even when this is done with extraordinary deftness and consumate skill (Schindler's List comes to mind - the movie was only more or less redeemed by the fact that the movie was true to the events that occurred and that Spielberg had the good sense not to turn Schindler into St. Schindler, and because the story of how Schindler became a "name" in the 1960's is great.) it still gets irksome. And when it covers a time and period from which we've seen this particular plot device so many times that the poor mechanism has got to be exhausted from all the use it's gotten? I'm just tired of it.

I'm going to lump this book in with Slaves in the Family and In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, neither of which I liked. I just don't like reading about about upper middle class Southern Whites who are carefully certain to let their readers know that they are of a certain place in Southern society before we read what they've learned from Black people.

Now that I'm finished with that rant, I realize that if someone fictionalized the events Shirley Sherrod described in the full video from that banquet, I'd likely read it and enjoy it. It would be the device but with a fresh slant.

 

[gregokdisney]

I liked it, but I have to say I didn't like it because of Skeeter, I liked it because of Abileen and Milly and the white woman I liked best was Celia, the one that Hilly treated so poorly, almost as bad as she treated the black women.

I liked that they made Skeeter a little insecure and not so nobly righteous that she wasn't heartbroken when Stuart dumped her. She felt like she was doing a good thing for the maids but she still regretted how it affected her when she realized her boyfriend wouldn't tolerate it.

The thing I didn't like is that Skeeter got a great new job and a ticket out of town, which to be frank she had to have or Hilly was going to make her life miserable, but Milly and Abileen were stuck there. I don't see how publishing their stories helped them at all. I guess that's the reality of life for black women at that time and place.

 

[Mimi1965]

Just for clarity, I have 'bolded' the word I used in my original post - I never said it was exactly the same as in the book, only that there were still some places where certain things, such as were described int he book, still went on.

Well since you live in England and you are putting down people who live in Georgia-tell us exactly what this chef said on a tv show-a cooking show-mind you-in England, You are inferring that blacks still have to sit in the back of the bus-have seperate water fountains and bathrooms. Not so

In the the early 60's I remember our city park had two giant swimmming pools side by side-one for white-one for blacks. I remember the sign in the bus for "coloreds: to sit behind the sign. All that ended with the civil rights movement

So do clarify.

I think Celia being treated horribly by the "old money" snobby Junior League women will be a big point of the movie.


A lot of the book is exaggeration, of course. My grandmother always had "help"-her name was Wilemenia=and allus grandkids LOVED her.

 

[RUDisney]

Okay, I'll go ahead and say it. I didn't like this book and was regretful I spent $10 on the Kindle version. It was another White-Person-Realizes-An-Underclass-Exists-Feels-Great-Guilt-Becomes-A-Hero book. Even when this is done with extraordinary deftness and consumate skill (Schindler's List comes to mind - the movie was only more or less redeemed by the fact that the movie was true to the events that occurred and that Spielberg had the good sense not to turn Schindler into St. Schindler, and because the story of how Schindler became a "name" in the 1960's is great.) it still gets irksome. And when it covers a time and period from which we've seen this particular plot device so many times that the poor mechanism has got to be exhausted from all the use it's gotten? I'm just tired of it.

I'm going to lump this book in with Slaves in the Family and In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, neither of which I liked. I just don't like reading about about upper middle class Southern Whites who are carefully certain to let their readers know that they are of a certain place in Southern society before we read what they've learned from Black people.

Now that I'm finished with that rant, I realize that if someone fictionalized the events Shirley Sherrod described in the full video from that banquet, I'd likely read it and enjoy it. It would be the device but with a fresh slant.

The thing I like about stories like The Help and Schindler's List is that they show us that when everyone around us is doing the wrong thing, some are brave enough to do the right thing. I don't see them as being cheerleader books for the main characters or that they are so guilt ridden that they do the right thing. Perhaps guilt plays into it, but I choose to believe that Skeeter and Oskar Schindler had a better reason for doing what they did than just guilt.

I'm not saying that your opinion is wrong, just offering my slant on this topic.

 

[Mary•Poppins]

LOVED this book. I couldn't put it down. It really makes you think. (and, I will always think of this book when I see a chocolate pie!)

 

[once_uponadream]

Okay, I'll go ahead and say it. I didn't like this book and was regretful I spent $10 on the Kindle version. It was another White-Person-Realizes-An-Underclass-Exists-Feels-Great-Guilt-Becomes-A-Hero book. Even when this is done with extraordinary deftness and consumate skill (Schindler's List comes to mind - the movie was only more or less redeemed by the fact that the movie was true to the events that occurred and that Spielberg had the good sense not to turn Schindler into St. Schindler, and because the story of how Schindler became a "name" in the 1960's is great.) it still gets irksome. And when it covers a time and period from which we've seen this particular plot device so many times that the poor mechanism has got to be exhausted from all the use it's gotten? I'm just tired of it.

I agree. It's the same problem I have with movies like 'The Blind Side', 'Freedom Writers', etc.