I just re-read this one and reminded myself how much I love it. To be fair, I pretty well love all of JW's books, but still.
Fly Away Home tells a story that has become all too familiar in recent years - Sylvie, the wife of a powerful NY Senator, who runs her husband's life (keeps track of his schedule, helps him write speeches, waits for his eggs at a buffet) - is completely shattered when it comes out that her husband had an affair with an aide, and then helped said aide get a job afterwards. The book jumps between chapters told in Sylvie's POV - what does she do now, should she leave her husband, hire a paid assassin? - to chapters told in the POV of one of their two daughters. Diana is a seemingly perfect woman - ER doctor, avid runner, married with a child - but she's having an affair with her medical intern, because she's desperately lonely and her husband is...well...oblivious. Lizzie is fresh out of rehab and trying to prove to her family and herself that she can be helpful, responsible, and learn how to live a life free of recreational substances.
Fly Away Home is touching, hilarious, and all-around amazing. I don't know a married woman out there who hasn't seen one of those "Senator/Representative/Governor So-and-So has confessed..." stories without trying to put herself in the place of his wife. This story is fantastic because it tells the other side of the story, the one we never hear.
This book contains sexual content, swears and some "crude" humor.
Showing posts with label amaze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amaze. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Let me start out by saying, and I cannot overstate this, that The Help is the best book ever. I love, love, love this book - so much that I've recommended it to pretty well everyone, and given it as a gift to several people.
The Help is set in Mississippi during the civil rights movement - just prior to the march on Washington DC by Martin Luther King Jr. Our first main character is Skeeter - she should be a debutante, content to play bridge, attend club meetings and get married. She chose instead to go to Ole Miss - and not just to meet a man. Now she's back home, living on the plantation, with a mother determined to see her married before she dies and an urge to do something...different. Our next main character is Aibileen, a black maid raising her 17th white child, while still grieving for the loss of her son. She is devoted to the girl she looks after, even though she knows the child will most likely grow up to be a bigot, just like her parents, neighbors and friends. Our last main character is Minny, also a black maid, but much different than Aibileen. Where Aibileen is soft-spoken and mild, Minny is all fire and sass - and she's been fired more than once for talking back.
Skeeter is driven to the end of her rope by her friend Hilly's "home health sanitation initiative" - a drive to convince every white family who has black "help" to have a separate bathroom for them to use. Skeeter wants to be a journalist, but most of all, she wants to write a book. She decides she wants to write a book about "the help" - the black women who come into their homes, cook their meals, do their wash, raise their children. She is driven in part by the deep love she has for her own maid, Constantine, who disappeared without a trace while Skeeter was in school. The best and most dangerous part about this book is - she's going to tell the stories of these women by hearing it from their own mouths - the good, the bad, the horrible, the loving. If any of them are discovered, it could mean death.
The Help is touching, funny, horrifying, intense...all at once. There is some mild language (especially racial slurs) and a very small amount of graphic imagery, but in my opinion, this is a book that everyone needs to read. Go to your local bookstore, Kindle, Amazon, library, whatevs - but get it now and read it. Go forth!
The Help is set in Mississippi during the civil rights movement - just prior to the march on Washington DC by Martin Luther King Jr. Our first main character is Skeeter - she should be a debutante, content to play bridge, attend club meetings and get married. She chose instead to go to Ole Miss - and not just to meet a man. Now she's back home, living on the plantation, with a mother determined to see her married before she dies and an urge to do something...different. Our next main character is Aibileen, a black maid raising her 17th white child, while still grieving for the loss of her son. She is devoted to the girl she looks after, even though she knows the child will most likely grow up to be a bigot, just like her parents, neighbors and friends. Our last main character is Minny, also a black maid, but much different than Aibileen. Where Aibileen is soft-spoken and mild, Minny is all fire and sass - and she's been fired more than once for talking back.
Skeeter is driven to the end of her rope by her friend Hilly's "home health sanitation initiative" - a drive to convince every white family who has black "help" to have a separate bathroom for them to use. Skeeter wants to be a journalist, but most of all, she wants to write a book. She decides she wants to write a book about "the help" - the black women who come into their homes, cook their meals, do their wash, raise their children. She is driven in part by the deep love she has for her own maid, Constantine, who disappeared without a trace while Skeeter was in school. The best and most dangerous part about this book is - she's going to tell the stories of these women by hearing it from their own mouths - the good, the bad, the horrible, the loving. If any of them are discovered, it could mean death.
The Help is touching, funny, horrifying, intense...all at once. There is some mild language (especially racial slurs) and a very small amount of graphic imagery, but in my opinion, this is a book that everyone needs to read. Go to your local bookstore, Kindle, Amazon, library, whatevs - but get it now and read it. Go forth!
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