The Help

Have y’all read this book yet?  Oh!  I highly recommend it!  I could hardly put it down and I am kicking myself for lending my copy out because I think I want to read it again!  It was so very well written, capturing accents, attitudes and the time period to perfection.  The author does a superb job of sprinkling elements from the sixties throughout the story to really ground the reader in the time.

The reflections of the characters in the last third or so of the book are so realistic and poignant.  They do a daring thing, and the consequences begin to play out.  As each woman wonders if her decisions were right, my heart was touched in such a personal way.  The women evaluated the losses they sustained and one in particular realizes that she didn’t really lose anything.  She was set free.

It is interesting to me how we hold onto things in our lives so tightly that cause us harm.  We fight with ferocious tenacity to maintain the status quo, even if it is killing our spirits.  I think of the dark secrets of abuse and addiction and how it drains life from everyone who is touched by it—and yet the resistance to change is a strength that challenges the rawest forces in nature.

What freedom we abandon when we hold on to things that bring us harm.  This book does a beautiful job of showing how courage is available to speak truth and to be free!