Review of "The Help"

I would also give this book a 4-star rating. Like Rachell, I didn't like the profanity; some of the earthy sexual references, while fairly muted, were also a tad uncomfortable but not so much I found it objectionable. And it took me a couple chapters to pick up the black dialect, but what can you expect from a Midwesterner?

This was a good story. Nicely place humor helped relieve some of the racial-conflict-induced stress, but didn't detract from the overall sobering message of prejudice, segregation and [wo]man's inhumanity to [wo]man (it always seems uglier in women). It is difficult for me to understand that deep division between races.

I also felt some tension personally as Skeeter begins to jettison some of her Southern culture and transition into sandals, short skirts and long, straight hair--symbols of the free-loving hippie culture emerging in America at the same time. Did anyone else pick up on an undercurrent of women's liberation shadowing the main conflict or am I hypersensitive to that?

Whether we're talking about repressed black people or repressed women, it always goes back to individual perceptions and how we pass along our own value system to our children. The sins of the fathers and mothers really are transmitted generationally.