A witty and insightful tale that comes close in our society and community - where the stories stems from the lives of real people and shines light to the working class that has been in the shadows , working hard for their families ; a story where truths are prevailed , friendships are made and mostly, the voices of the oppressed are heard through the story.

What's The Story About ?
Imagine finding the friend that you know accused of a murder that she never did.

The story takes point from the POV of three Filipino women - who worked as helpers in Singapore. All three of them , Angel, Donita and Cora has their own circumstances and each families that they worked with are also significantly different - tho interconnected with one another. When a high profile murder happened and the accused is of the Filipino helper in the home which happened to be the three women's friends, various things came to light. The story of corruption, fight for power, injustice of migrant workers and mostly giving voice to things that reflected heavily in our society.

Thoughts

Honestly, this book took me by surprise. I was somehow enamoured by the story and the lives of the three women and their employer families. Its literally like watching an episode of Desperate Housewives but make it The Maid version. Not only the Voice of the story is witty, it also contained a lot of reflections and criticism to the government - both Singapore and Philippines, to bringing the voice of reason for the migrant workers especially in countries like Singapore. The author had shone light to various topics such as abusive employers, labor rights, the broken system for the migrant workers , police corruption, the drug war in the Philippines and social prejudice system that , me as an Asian in the neighbouring country, can see it happening in my country as well.

I love the Characters in the story and how each of the 3 women brought with them the reflections of the various behaviours and prejudices of employers in the community. It was definitely an eye-opening moment reading the POV of the helpers in our community. The fact that the author had done a thorough research in the topic had made the story felt personal and close. I liked Donita's feistiness and how she had fought her abusive employer. Angel had an epiphany at her employers whilst Cora found another person to call home.

Its honestly sad reading some of the prejudices that the society has inflicted on the migrant workers, especially in their fairness in having education, good pay and abused - both physically and mentally - by their employers. Its a thin line where The Help is an extension of your family and self , in which its impossible to separate two and two together. I liked that the author had shown how some employees can be super harsh and cruel and some treats the help with respect like fellow human beings and family. I feel that there are two sides of the story that can be seen here, and mostly showed how insensitive and condescending a person can be, especially when money and status comes in play. I also liked how close to reality the story is - and the fact that the author wrote this book loosely from real events that had happened in Singapore. The constant fight for the correct system for migrant workers are still ongoing and it definitely makes a very eye opening read.

Overall, this book will definitely take you by surprise. The fact that the author is from Singapore herself and that she moved to Philippines makes the setting to be lively and definitely realistic. What I can learn from the story is to always be kind to every single person and that the voices of these workers matters as much as everyone else in the country. I myself learnt a lot from this book and made me realized the privilege I have. Definitely will be a good book for a book club discussion and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

4🌟 for this gem!

Biggest thank you to Times Reads for this copy!