The basic plot and themes of The Help have been covered by other reviewers. I don't regret reading this book as an entertaining piece of fiction, but it is hardly an incisive look at 1960s race relations (being too superficial to do the subject justice). Some reviewers would have us believe this book is world-changing, thought provoking etc. I just see it as a novel with an interesting storyline, some entertaining vignettes and 3 first-person narrators which provides a nice change from other works of fiction.The things that stop me from proclaiming The Help as a profoundly meaningful book are several. A minor gripe was that the story seemed to move very slowly. But this could be viewed as intentional (change comes slowly, people in the south were stuck in their ways etc). Poor editing is another flaw ("The scream was like a piece of material ripped into shredded halves"). Others have already mentioned the stereotypical characters. Sure, they were likeable, but they were nevertheless predictable and one-dimensional. Add to this the increasingly farcical progression of events, coupled with blatant sentimentality and I could no longer take this book seriously. I finished it because I wanted to know what happened, but can't say I was particularly moved or influenced by this story. 

Question: When did you get a new job?
Answer: the stereotypical