Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had high hopes for this book because of the subject and the great reviews. Unfortunately, it is a badly-written, trivial work with an unbelivable plot and one-dimensional characters. It's sad statement that supports the "dumbing down of America" that it has sold so many copies and received so many positive customer reviews. *****The following synopsis contains MAJOR SPOILERS***** Skeeter Phalen has just returned home from college to her family's cotton plantation. We know she is a sympathetic major character because she's named "Skeeter", as all Southern white heroines have to have quirky tomboy nicknames. She has no job and no life plan, but she does have rich parents, a country club membership and is a member of the Junior League, along with her inseparable childhood friends - the racist, hateful, vengeful queen bee Hilly, and Hilly's henchman, the stupid, spineless Elizabeth, a woman who can't stand her own child. It's a wonder why Skeeter would love these women! Skeeter wants to become a writer, and, although she can't seems to decide whether that's being a journalist or a novelist, the reader knows she must have talent because, after all, she is the editor of her local chapter's Junior League newsletter! Skeeter's old-school mama just wants her daughter to land a husband, despite the fact that, at 23, she's never even had one date, and even mama thinks she might be a lesbian. But she's not. Just unattractive to men, because she's 5'11" and has frizzy hair! Skeeter sends some of her college writing to a number of publishers, and, lo and behold, she hears back from a senior editor of a NY publishing house. The editor is a tough-talking, professional who is a Jewish liberal (because all women in prominant positions in NY in the 60s must have been Jewish liberals), but she found in Skeeter, a Southern Christian conservative, a kindred spirit (huh?), and she takes it upon herself to offer career advice, because, you know, all senior editors working in large publishing houses have lots of spare time to nurture unproven talent. The editor tells her to get a job on the local paper, but to send along her ideas about what she might want to write about, something that disturbs her, perhaps. The problem is Skeeter can't think of anything to write about because clearly nothing disturbs her. She sends a long list of possibly disturbing topics to the NY editor, but each one of these topics has already disturbed the reading public, and the editor wants some new disturbance. But Skeeter does get a job on the local paper - writing a column about cleaning advice. Except that she knows nothing about cleaning, since the poor darlin' has never had to lift a finger all her privileged life! So she trots off to best friend Elizabeth's house to ask her friend if she can get the information she needs to write her column from Elizabeth's saintly maid, Aibileen. Aibileen knows everything about cleaning, since in the course of her 8-hour day she cleans, washes clothes, irons, cooks, polishes silver, and tends to Elizabeth's neglected daughter, Mae Mobly (where DO they get these names???). Now poor overworked Aibileen has to do Miss Skeeter's job, too! So in the course of picking Aibileen's brain for cleaning tips she can steal, Skeeter learns that Aibileen's dead son was writing a book about his white employers. Well, hey! That's a disturbing topic! So Skeeter decides she'll write a book about the black maids and their white employers! Except that she doesn't know too many maids (since they aren't allowed to join the Junior League), so she goes to Aibileen for help, and Aibileen, despite the fact that it's the early 60s and she could be lynched for just knowing about this dangerous venture, immediately jumps on board! They'll meet in private, of course, at Aibileen's house and no one in the black neighborhood will ever notice Skeeter's daddy's truck or her mama's shiny new Cadillac parked on Aibileen's street. Aibileen's best friend is another maid, Minny. Aibileen is the saint, but Minny's the sassy one. She's gotten fired from every job because she can't help sassing off to her employers. Minny has five kids and a husband Leroy. I have never met a fictional character named Leroy who was a good guy, so he is aptly named because he beats Minny at every opportunity - he beats her when he's drunk a few nights a week, and he beats her when he's sober just for the fun of it. But tough, sassy Minny stays with him anyway because she just loves the guy! We find out later in the book that he doesn't beat her when she's pregnant, so maybe that's why she has so many kids. Minny finally gets a job working for the town White Trash who happened to marry a rich and prominant man, who for some unexplained reason loves her deeply. Since he can't possibly love her for her brain (she hasn't one), or her domestic skills (zero there too) so it must be because she's a bleached blonde with a huge chest who wears tight and low-cut clothes. She doesn't know enough about the acceptable mores of the rich to understand that she's not supposed to tolerate Minny's sassing, so theirs is a marriage made in heaven! White Trash is trying to ingratiate herself with the Junior League women, but Hilly the Evil and Elizabeth the Stupid and their minions freeze her out. At the annual social event of the year, White Trash shows up dressed like a hooker, gets plastered, and vomits in front of all the snobs she wanted to impress. She takes to her bed in humiliation for a week, while her sensitive and loving husband goes off to deer camp. Fortunately Minny is there to tell her vile stories of the Junior League women and lift her spirits! There is no further development of the White Trash story except that she turns to gardening and continues to wear her trashy clothes. Aibileen convinces Minny nd 10 other maids to share their stories about their white employers and despite the danger of their being fired, their family members being fired, of being evicted from their homes, of being falsely accused of theft or some other crime (and prison), or being physically harmed, the maids decide it's in their best interest to trust this unknown rich white girl, so they spill their guts to Skeeter. After all, she is risking something too, maybe something as serious as losing the friendship of the mean girls or (gasp!) expulsion from the Junior League!!! Aibileen feels so empowered by the writing of the book that she begins to tell little Mae Mobly "secret stories" of racial equality, and tolerance. Yes, trusting a toddler to keep secrets - always a good idea! Mae Mobly is overheard by her daddy retelling one of these stories, and Aibileen is frightened when he demands to know where Mae Mobly heard these, but the little girl lies and blames it on her pre-school teacher, which is okay because she protects the saintly Aibileen, and the teacher was a racist anyway, so who cares? In the course of the story Skeeter lands a boyfriend. On their first date he gets sloppy drunk and tells her she smells of fertilizer, but, he's the son of a racist state senator, so...a great catch! He breaks up with her for a while so that he can look up his old girlfriend, but she takes him back (remember, he's a great catch!) and he eventually proposes. Then she confides this dangerous venture she's involved with, exploiting the maids' stories to launch her writing career, and the hero almost trips over his own feet running out the door. Of course, he grabbed the engagement ring first! Skeeter is so involved writing up the maids' stories and planning her new life away from Mississippi, that she never notices her mama has cancer and is on death's door. By the time she pays some attention to anyone but herself, Mama has an announcement to make. She decides she's not going to die! And so she doesn't! I hope the American Cancer Society reads this book. Apparently an announcement refusing to die is the cure for this horrible disease. In the end the book is published, the maids make abut $61 each, Skeeter gets a dream job in New York (thanks to her Jewish guardian angel) and leaves Aibileen and Minny to suffer the serious ramifications of their involvement with the book. Minny is almost killed by her husband because Hilly the Evil's husband fired Leroy. Aibileen narrowly avoids jailtime on a charge trumped up by Hilly, but does lose her job with Elizabeth the Stupid and has to bid a brokenhearted farewell to Mae Mobly, leaving the child traumatized and her in tears. But...they will all have a new life now, 'cause the times they are a changin', and it was all worth the pain! Rubbish! Please thank me now - I have saved you $13!