The Help – A Snob’s Book Review

Here’s something you should know about me.  I am a snob.  Not a snob in the traditional sense. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else.  I don’t turn my nose up at anyone.  Lord knows I’m not rich. But I am a snob when it comes to things that are overly popular.  Unless I was reading/listening/watching it first.  Although I am much better than I used to be.  My husband still gives me a hard time though.  Every time a new band comes on Yo Gabba Gabba he says “hey Whit, have many times have you seen these guys in concert?” It started as a kid I think.  My dad never wanted us to go back to school shopping until after the first week. He always said we needed to see what everyone else was wearing first.  That way we’d always be in style.  Even then I threw a fit.  “I don’t want to wear what everyone else is wearing!” In retrospect, it was probably good advice.  I was never the coolest kid.

 

I mentioned last week that I just finished the 4th book in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series and needed a mental break.  I was in the airport when I finished it.  After milling around in the airport bookstore I decided on “The Help.”  But I was reluctant.  Because I am a snob.  There was so much hype around it that I was reluctant.  In all fairness, even if I weren’t a snob I find that when movies or books are that hyped up they turn out to be a disappointment.  Not bad necessarily, but you get so worked up and excited over it, thinking you are about to witness the most amazing thing ever, you can’t help when things turn out to be just really good, and not the most amazing thing ever.   But I have to tell you, the book is so good.  I couldn’t put it down.  I think you are all probably aware of the storyline, so I won’t bother to explain it. The author Kathryn Stockett is one brave lady for writing this book.  There aren’t many white women that could (or should) write a book about such a troubled time and largely from the perspective of a black woman living through it.  I was a little taken back initially because she’s uses a heavy dialect for the black characters only, but I think it worked. Stockett manages to make all of her characters relatable, even the completely unrelatable ones.  I am pretty sure I know a woman or two that could have been Hilly Hollbrook in a past life.  Pretty awful stuff. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it.  And now I will ignore all of the hype about the movie and put it on my Netflix queue immediately.  I already have a girl crush on Emma Stone anyway.

George R. R. Martin might be killing me

I just finished “A Feast For Crows,” the fourth book in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire Series. I have previously grumbled about this:http://wp.me/pROJ9-kQ  This book was an intense 1000 pages. They are all intense, but this was  a different sort of intense from the first three books.  Martin actually apologizes at the end and explains that after writing thousands of pages, he knew he was going to have to split the book in two.  Instead of writing about the characters chronologically, he wrote about them by location (north and south.) Therefore he only wrote what was happening to half the characters.  And he left out the better half of the characters for the most part.  I’m not saying that the book was bad by any means, just not what I was hoping for.  There were some very satisfying goings on right at the end, but I won’t spoil it. But I definitely I need a breather after this.  You know you’re reading something great when you feel emotionally exhausted by the end of it.  My husband is halfway through the fifth book(A Dance With Dragons.)  I keep looking at those 1300 pages and I’m not ready.  There are still a few more books in the series that have yet to be written, so I don’t see any real rush to get through the next one.  Then I’ll just be waiting around. So I picked up The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (I think you’d have to be living under a rock to not know what this is at this point) in the airport on Friday and it is excellent so far.  I’m zipping right through it though and A Dance with Dragons keeps making eyes at me.

What are you reading?  I would love some recommendations.