The Help

I was in Searcy for Harding's homecoming at the end of October and Alice Ann Kellar (My parent's dear and best next-door neighbor ever!) suggested to me that I read The Help.  Since our family has decided not to buy anymore books and try to exclusivly use the public library, I went and looked up this book.  Yeah, I got put on the hold list.  I was #96 on the list.  That means that 95 people get to read this book before I get it in my hands.  Arrrrggghh.  I can't tell you how many times that I have walked past this hardcover book at the store and put it in my cart and then had to put it back on the shelf.  I would read review after review and facebook post after post of how people love this book...and I couldn't read it. 

Last week at Pokeno night, we were talking about books and I mentioned that I'd been on the hold list for what has seemed like forever for this dear book.  And what do you know?? One of my friends had it and brought it to me the very next day at church!!  Talk about excited!  I've been super busy at school and some other things are going on that I can't talk about just yet so I take the book with me everywhere.  I read a few minutes in the pick-up line at school, I sneak in a few pages at Grace's softball practice and then last night I stayed up until 1:30 AM finishing this book. 

It was great. I loved it.  But, at the same time, it made me so sad.  The book takes place in the 1960's during the height of the civil rights movement.  It is about housewives and their Help.  It is about relationships...good and bad, during the 60's.  It makes me wonder what I would have been like if I had been a housewife during those times in the south or if I would have been like Miss Skeeter, in the book.  As a child of the mid 70's and 80's, I heard some stories like these, but many of these stories were brand new to me.  I'm not going to go into great detail about the book.  I want you to read it and hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.  

Did I mention that I got an e-mail from the library yesterday saying that my book that I had placed on hold was now available??