Read this book!

Seriously, do it now.

I know I'm a little behind the times, but I finally got my hands on The Help and I'm just sad I didn't read it sooner. What a fabulous book. I was recommending it at page 30. It totally lived up to the hype.

For those who don't know, The Help is about the intersecting lives of white women and their African American maids in 1960s Mississippi. There are three main voices in the book, 1 white and 2 African American. The author, Kathryn Stockett, managed to create three distinct, yet equally rich and complex voices that never waver throughout their different chapters. Stockett has been criticized by some for the dialect, but I was not upset or offended by it, and the way she varied it from character to character made it realistic.

The story develops over the course of a few years and I felt like we really learn about several of the characters in the book, more than just the main three, and became involved in their lives. As the story goes on, sides are definitely drawn and while its fairly (immensely) easy to pick your side, it is so thrilling to see how the dominoes fall. I'm not going to go into it anymore, read it for yourself.