Good Help is Hard to Find

The Help by Kathryn Stockett takes place is a world that is totally alien to me. A world where everybody has a maid. Where the lines between black and white people are carefully drawn. And where speaking out against the status quo can get one killed.

It is 1963 in Mississippi and the civil rights movement is only a murmur in the distance. The white women in town can’t live without their black maids, who cook their food, clean their homes and take care of their children. Yet, at the same time, they don’t want these maids using the same bathrooms as they do. When a young white woman sets out to write the stories these maids have to tell about their lives, we get a keen insight into these color lines and how they affected people both black and white during this turbulent period.

Stockett draws interesting and very well rounded characters and the story is compelling. The white people are not shown as evil ignorant Southerners, just people with some very deeply imbedded ideas about how the world should be. And the black people are not portrayed as noble martyrs but simply as human beings hoping for something better.

Though I know a lot about the civil rights movement, I was touched by the personal stories of bravery in this book. Though they are fictional, I could see how the smallest act of defiance during this time period could be an important step in equality and freedom.

Besides the historical and political themes of the book, it’s also just a great read. There are some terrific characters that you’ll simply fall in love with. I would highly recommend it!



Reviewed by Lori M

To find this book in the Library, go to our website at www.newberglibrary.org

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Audio Books
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To find these books in the Library, visit our website at www.newberglibrary.org

Princess Leia did what?

Maybe you only know Carrie Fisher as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher (and, infamously, the step-daughter of Elizabeth Taylor). Or you maybe you only think of her as Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies. Or perhaps you’ve enjoyed her funny and acerbic novels like Postcards from the Edge and Delusions of Grandma.

Well, if you think you know Carrie Fisher at all, you haven’t read her new memoir Wishful Drinking. Fisher cultivated the book from a one-woman show she does by the same name and she doesn’t hold anything back.

Fisher unhinges her famously sharp wit to make such things as a father’s abandonment, drug addiction, mental illness and a dead friend in one’s bed absolutely hilarious! Holding nothing back, she recounts all sorts of juicy tidbits making them less about gossip and more about the pieces that have made her what she is today. Never whiney, and far for the spoiled Hollywood brats we often see in the media today, Fisher delivers a smart biting tell-all about how growing up famous (and, more importantly suffering from drug addiction and mental illness) affected her. If you like your memoirs nutty, this might be a good read for you!

To find this book in the Library, go to our website at http://www.newberglibrary.org/

Reviewed by Lori M.