The Help

After many recommendations from family and friends, I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett and really enjoyed it. The book takes place in Jackson, Mississippi and chronicles a few years in the lives of a group of friends and their "help," their maids. The novel takes place in the 1960s, and race relations is a major theme throughout.

Having only visited Jackson once (and that was in the 1990s), it was informative to read about segregation from the perspectives of both the white housewives and their black maids. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the main characters. I don't want to give anything away about the plot, but I do wonder how authentic the various voices are. Stockett has received some criticism as a white woman writing in the voices of black women--that even in a fiction book, she would not be able to capture the maids' experiences.

What do you think? Does one owns experience impact one's ability to tell the story of an other's experience?

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

Water for Elephants is a historical novel by Sara Gruen. The novel centers on Jacob Jankowski and his experiences in a travelling circus called The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. This one had been on my "to read" list for a while now since it was on the NY Times Bestsellers List, but once I heard that it was going to be turned into a film, it quickly rose to the top. Hehe.

The novel is told through Jacob's perspective when he is an old man living in a nursing home reminiscing about his time working in the circus in his early 20s. The dynamic that develops between Jacob, the dysfunctional foreman, and his beautiful wife is the main cause of drama in the novel and had me turning the pages quickly to find out what was going to happen. I don't want to give too much away because I would definitely recommend this for you ladies to read. The film will star Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, and Reese Witherspoon, so as I was reading the novel, I visualized them as the characters and I think it made the story come more alive for me.

What do you think about reading novels that already have a film adaptation or one in production? Does it help you get a clearer image of the characters or would you rather be able to come up with your own visual of the characters?

PREP

I read PREP after AMERICAN WIFE (completely randomly) which is a story about a girl who moves from her hometown in the Mid West to attend a swanky boarding school on the East Coast. The chapters are divided into semesters of the year and you see the main character as she attempts to make friends in the first year among her very privileged peers, endure boy crushes and family embarrassment, all the while just trying to fit in. It was a really interesting read, especially since it was almost like they were going off to college instead of high school. College is normally the first time that you are really away from your parents and able to make most of your own decisions. There's no parental guidance, but the teachers and headmaster are there to make sure you follow the rules.

I actually enjoyed the book. Did any of you read it?

Did any of you go to a boarding school? What were your experiences like there?