I’ll admit it; I saw the movie before I read the book. But seeing the movie only made me more determined to read Kathryn Stockett’s first book, The Help, and I am so glad that I did.

Set in the early 1960s when segregation was an accepted part of life, The Help is told from the point of three women; Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a recent college-graduate who dreams of being a writer and Aibileen Clark and Minnie Jackson, two African-American maids. The plot of the story revolves around Skeeter’s desire to write a book about the relationships between black maids and their white woman employers. During the process of writing the book the three form an unlikely friendship that, if discovered, would prove disastrous for all of them.

Stockett gives a different point of view on racism during the 1960s. Instead of focusing in on the wild politics, she focuses more on the day-to-day struggle black maids faced, such as having to use separate toilets because blacks are thought to have different diseases from whites. Even though the maids make the food, clean the house, care for the children, and know every family secret, the white women they work for still look at their maids as dull-minded creatures from another world. This form of racism sows bitter seeds of hatred in the hard working maids who feel that their daughters will have no choice but to follow their mother’s footsteps into white women’s homes.

This tale is not just filled with woe though; it has a tender heart beneath the surface. The relationships between the maids and the white children they care for, as well as maids with kind employers, shine a different light on Southern racism. The strong minded main characters will have you tearing up and laughing until your stomach hurts, especially the big hearted and sassy Minnie who is a personal favorite.

The Help is about struggle and triumph, tears and joy, but above all, The Help is about three women who had the courage to write the truth about the lives of black maids in the segregated South. The characters are wonderfully developed, as is the historical background and setting. I was torn between not being able to put the book down and not wanting it to end.