This book is rated with 4.46 stars on goodreads. That's just below Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and just above the Holy Bible. When I see a rating like I think, "Well, 137,000 people gave it 4 or 5 stars, it's gotta be amazing!" So with that I read The Help.
**contains spoilers**
Now this book, clearly, is not written to be simply enjoyed. It's historical fiction, it's a heavy subject matter. That's fine. I've been known to like the genre. And ya know, I really enjoyed the voicing. I liked the idea of the book. I loved Aibileen. I liked Minny.
But here's my beef. Skeeter is a lame protagonist. And not just because she bugged me. Which she did. But she was surprised by too obvious of things, don't you think? Examples:
1.The toilets
She seemed surprised that Hilly wasn't thrilled to have toilets on her lawn. Obvious, that act was bound to have repercussions, no? But Skeeter seemed confused that her friends stopped talking to her and dejected to get kicked out of her place as editor.
2. Maids in danger
After 9 months of working on this book, she has the lightbulb moment of, "This could be dangerous for the maids when people in Jackson read it."
3. Stuart
Near the end she realizes Stuart really doesn't know her. Um, where has she been for the whole book? And never did she have a moment where she was weighing her views against those of her traditionally-South boyfriend and his family and what problems that might cause to her or his father's career.
4. Mom's cancer
Skeeter didn't care much about her mom being sick until she was shocked to find out it was cancer. The reader wasn't shocked, and I was not convinced that Skeeter should have been either.
Basically, Skeeter was either way too slow on the up-take for me, or she just wasn't convincing to me as a real-life character.
And then there's the fact that she bugged me. (Am I taking this too far?) In no particular order:
- Her priority is getting published. I was not convinced she cared about the issue she's writing about.
- Not careful with her book or her flimsy lies to cover up her plans that would have been uncovered by any other author, I swear.
- She's supposedly brave enough to take on this issue, but she can't get the gumption to move out or tell her parents what she thinks.
- Exempted herself from putting her own sensitive info into the book when all the maids did.
- She moved out of the danger zone of Jackson to have her posh New York City life and left the maids and the issues behind.
Now, if Skeeter were a side character and more time was spent on Aiblieen and Minny, I think that would have solved (almost) all my problems. But why is this meager character paired with the other stalwart and likeable two? It's hard to love a book when you don't like the protagonist.
To boot, I thought the middle of the book very slow. But with all that, ya know, I liked the book fine. But 5 stars? 5 stars?!
The subject: noteworthy. The final product: shaky. And I'm surprised that more people didn't think so.
Now I need book club to help me ease up and come around.
