Read This Book

So now on my bed stand sits Lion's Lady, a rolicking tale of a young Scottish Lass who is left betrayed & preggo my ego by the love of her life Lion Sutherland. Of course shenanigans ensue. The other book which comes with me to the gym because I am to embarassed to bring the above is My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler. I'm working my way through all of her books starting with ths one. You got me as to why taking a book about one night stands to the gym is acceptable while a busty lady with a sword on the cover makes me blush. Try to psyschoanalyse me, I dare you.

Anyway before these two & during my family vacation I decided on reading something with some more depth, something that I wouldn't feel like I needed to hide from my family. So I read Kathryn Stockett's "The Help."

It was one of the most incredible pieces of literature that I have ever read.

The story is told through three perspectives. Skeeter, a young white recent college graduate, longing to be an author, Aibileen, a 50 something maid dealing with the loss of her only child and Minny, also a maid, but dealing with raising many children and keeping an abusive husband.

Stockett is a white woman form Mississippi. Stockett is as white as they come with her blonde hair. And she even says in her "statement" at the end of the novel that she in no way claims to understand on any level what black women went through during the 1960's in Mississippi. And for that reason she was nervous to write the book. But boy, am I glad she did.

It's almost as if a different author wrote each chapter, that is how distinctive the voices are. Throughout the novel you can feel the paranoia of these woman, who are doing something that could essentially end their lives. And in each woman there is a seperate and endearing pain bundled in with that paranoia. There were times in the novel when I, a white woman living in 2011, felt like I needed to check the locks and peak outside. 

But there are so many more moments when I would chuckle & think "Damn I wish I could hang out with Minny, she's so funny!" or "If I were around I'd call Skeeter up for some tennis." and best of all "When the f*** is Hilly going to get what she has coming!!!!"

The story in itself, which centers around these three woman finaly telling the truth about the appauling behavior of whites in the south at this time, is hopeful & shocking. It broke my heart & offended me that this was the life too many people lived in the 1960s. I can't say much more because I want you to go out and get this book and experience it yourself. There you go... fly fly. read this book.