Author: Kathryn Stockett
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: Aoife Kerr
Branch: Leixlip
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid, Constatine, the woman who raised her, but Constatine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
This is such an amazing book. You can really feel the tension in the second half of the book. Kathryn Stockett is such a terrific writer who makes you want to read more. A lot of these characters are so relatable, you can’t help but cheer them on. This is a book that I think everyone should read. There is so much to this book, friendship, the relationship between employee and employer and Stockett does this brilliantly. I cannot recommend it enough.
Available to borrow on Bolinda Borrowbox in ebook format. Prefer a physical copy ? Feel free to request online from your local library here or make an appointment to visit your library here.
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