The Help, Chapters 10-19

Ohhhh boy, the things that are to be said about these chapters. Things have gotten horrible, and digusting, and Skeeter's been told off in the most satisfying way. I still maintain my dislike of Skeeter because she still insists on associating with those people. I say, take your cotton trust fund money and move up North where the normal people are, ok? I also just want to point out that, at this point, Stockett has mentioned Gone With the Wind and To Kill A Mockingbird at least three times each, as if mentioning them will fool readers into thinking that The Help is of the same calibre as them. Which, I'm sorry, but it isn't.

That's not to say that I'm hating The Help though, because that's not true. It's still ridiculously readable (a less nice person might say that's because it's not very complex but... ok, no, I am that mean. It's not) so I'm down with it. Now, let's talk about Minny and Celia, because clearly they're meant to be friends! I love it- Minny's all pretending to hate Celia because she's white (ooh Minny, you racist!) but really she feels sorry for her and wants to protect her which is so lovely I could just hug them both and I'm gonna! Also, we got to meet Celia's husband, and he's nice- he thinks it's great that Minny cooks for him, and he LOVES Celia- now she just has to stop wanting to be friends with those awful women, and everything will be fine there! He also was one of the To Kill a Mockingbird readers, so we can assume that he's possibly for civil rights? Maybe? And he couldn't marry Hilly because she's just heinous? Well, that last bit's true anyway.

And then there was the whole miscarriage down the toilet, and oh my GOD, what was that?! I mean, really, I'm not really squeamish, but that seemed really gross and unecessary! But at least we found out that Celia wasn't a secret drunk, so yay for that. But still, traumatised.

And Skeeter's being all annoying with her predictable boyfriend and her trying to write a book, and does she care that these people might all DIE because she wants to write a book about them? No, I don't think she does. I love love love the community amongst all the maids though- like, when Skeeter's paying them to be interviewed, and they all give their money to send Yule May's (who's now in prison because Hilly's such an EVIL WHORE) boys to college, and really I could just cry at that. Especially because, when Hilly invites that awful Leefolt woman (who's having another baby, and oh my what a bad idea that is) to the country club, she doesn't even buy her lunch when it's pretty clear that she's got a lot of money. God, I hate white people SO FUCKING MUCH.

Which is kind of a bit of a problem really, because it's making me feel like all white people are intrinsically bad, because there isn't one unquestionably good white person in the book so far- except possibly Celia, except that we all know from To Kill a Mockingbird that white trash people are considered basically the same as black people in this society. But where are the white people protesting for Civil Rights? Am I just to assume that they're up in the North, living it up Yankee style? Or is Skeeter going to grow a backbone and start standing up for what she believes is right? Stay tuned for (hopefully) some answers.