The Help by Kathryn Stockett- book review

The novel 'The Help' is set in the USA of 1960’s when the racial segregation between whites and colored people was too deep, Kennedy was assassinated and Martin Luther King was able to get people’s support for equality.
Written from the points of view of one white and two colored women, it brilliantly captures the feelings of colored maids who rear white children as their own but are made to feel by the adults that they are colored.

Each of the main characters passes through unexpected twists in their own lives. Besides many small and scary events, what keeps their life precariously on the edge is the book being written secretly by the white lady, Skeeter, with true stories about how colored ‘helps’ feel working in white homes. Despite the apprehension of them being fired and even them getting beaten up and jailed, the maids narrate their true stories to Skeeter over months. The book is finally published, with names of maids, their white mistresses and the author hidden. But then the hell breaks loose as the white ladies in the town find the stories relating to them. The final outcome is a mix of good and bad for the maids, but all get a sense of satisfaction in having expressed themselves.
The story flows well and feels authentic (the author in her epilogue mentions that she found such things happening in reality, through her own experiences and research). The language is especially enjoyable when said in the maids’ words. Look how Aibileen, the maid, and the kid she is currently raising celebrate the kid’s second birthday between them:

The three little pink candles I done brought from home is in my pocketbook. I bring em out, undo the wax paper I got em in so they don’t turn out bent. After I light em, I bring them grits over to her booster chair, at the white linoleum table in the middle a the room.
I say, “Happy birthday, Mae Mobley Two!”
She laugh and say, “I am Mae Mobley Three!”
“You sure is! Now blow out them candles, Baby Girl. Fore they run up in you grits.”
She stare at the little flames, smiling.
“Blow it, big girl.”
She blow em clean over. She suck the grits off the candles and start eating.

A book worth reading. Deserves  ⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5.