The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I was really impressed with this book and I really enjoyed Kathryn Stockett's writing style. I'm not going to lie: I usually judge whether a book's worth reading by the first few pages, and this one didn't have me pulled in as much as I'd like at the beginning. However, I'd had it recommended to me by one of my sisters-in-law, so I decided I'd give it a chance. I'm glad I did. A few more chapters in, and I was hooked.

The characters were beautifully shaped and had such different voices! It was wonderful. It was also fabulous how, near the end of the book, as the characters got closer to each other and more united in their purpose, their voices (while still distinguishable) started to blend together. INCREDIBLY written.

I will admit that there were portions of the book that I was uncomfortable with (particularly chapters 24 and 25), mostly due to the graphic nature of the things she was describing. I'm not particularly opposed to the points she was making, or even to the scenes she was illustrating/portraying. More that she spent too much time focusing on and describing things that were distasteful and didn't need as much time and focus spent on them. However, except for the aforementioned chapters and a few other snippets in the book, she handled the material very tastefully.

I didn't look at the author's picture until I was more than halfway through the book, and I found myself wondering what race she was. I was surprised to find out that she was white. She did a fantastic job handling the risky turf of "writing in the voice of a black person," as she calls it.