Julia Slaughter

Review

Rating: 8

In the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Siddalee Walker comments that the relationship between her own Mother is far too complex to make heads or tales of, she wasn’t even going to touch the relationship between herself and Willa (I think) the African American woman who “raised” her. At the time I read that statement it resonated with me, because though I was a child of the 70′s I often think of Emma, the woman who raised me, and wonder where she is now. However, The Help bravely goes where I don’t think any other book has gone before. It was a quick read, I laughed and I periodically cried. I was left wanting more and then terrified of more all at the same time.

I’d like to think that there was more good stories in the book that Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny wrote. I’d like to believe that the stories about women being forced to wash their hands in bleach and the terror over catching “black germs” were few and far between but while I’m not a child of the civil rights movement, I am a child of the South. The Help was a good book and as a child of the South it resonates.

I just wish we had really gotten to see Hilly get what she had coming to her.