DNF @ page 120/chapter 7

If this book hadn't sat on my TBR list AND my bookshelf since about 2011, I don't think I would have bothered with it. And if I hadn't listened to the first five chapters on audiobook, I don't think I would have gotten so far. I could accept the poor grammar from the black maids, but the phonetic spelling of words seemed nearly offensive, coming as it did from a white author who hadn't consulted any actual black people before she wrote her book (which, ironically, is supposed to be about a white woman helping prop up black voices, and ends up, in real life, being a novel from a white women using black voices only to advance her own career as a writer).


Ultimately, I recommend trying to look at what black readers have to say about this novel (and the movie). To start with, here's a link to the. ABWH's (Association of Black Women Historians) statement on the novel, which I recommend reading whether you liked the book or not: http://abwh.org/2011/08/12/an-open-statement-to-the-fans-of-the-help/