Taşıtlar - 2 Yaş kitap serbest oDF biçim

Milan Paňko _eird_tsu — So tired of his ghost writers. I give up

Rodrigo Vasquez rodva1987 — I've seen Kidd's book covers around, but didn't know too much about him. This was a nice quick introduction, and it led me to want to read his novel.

Pradeep Kumar pradeepskumar — This is an entertaining and also poignant story of courage in the face of racial oppression in Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. During the Jim Crow days prior to and on the precipice of the Civil Rights movement, the black housekeepers and maids raised the children of elite white families and cleaned their houses. However, they were expected to use a separate bathroom ("Negroes carry different diseases from white people"), eat from separate dishes, and refrain from opinions on racial inequality. Crossing boundaries could lead to fines or imprisonment, or even death. It is from these indignities that "the help" are aided by a budding, brave, young white journalist named Skeeter. Told in separate voices in alternating chapters--Abileen, Minnie (two black maids), and Skeeter--the author is able to give an unvarnished view of social injustice and the individual lives it affected in the Deep South. Through Skeeter's clandestine meetings with twelve black maids, the stories of their lives are culled covertly from in-depth interviews with these women. Over a period of several months, she sets out to complete an intrepid but protectively anonymous profile of a town and time under siege of segregation. But she took some brazen risks by including material that was specific to Jackson and its inhabitants. Skeeter plans to submit her finished book to an agent in New York, risking alienation from friends and family and even criminal prosecution if her identity (and the identity of the maids) is discovered. The prose is lilting, crisp; the tone is lively and droll, igniting the serious subject matter through irony and illusory irreverence. I turned the pages eagerly as the tension mounted and headed toward a dramatic climax. I was very impressed with this first-novel achievement by Stockett. She poised compassionately on a tightrope of pity, honesty, empathy, and all the inscrutable emotions that stretched between a black person and a white one in the days of segregation. Her candor and intimacy hinted at autobiographical moments. The characters were largely three-dimensional and vibrant, although the story is dotted with some one-note figures. Additionally, there were a few plot devices/ techniques that were a little contrived, a common occurrence with first time authors. The middle section lagged in a few places and the pace briefly lost some of its buoyancy, but the story overcame this idle interval and advanced to an exciting denouement. I was not ready to let the characters go when I finished the novel. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Pat Smith ctmphotog — Recently (as of early July 2009) reread this and definitely got more out of it the second time. I love how Vonnegut weaves the war story with sci-fi elements and his own struggles with being a writer. This is so much more than an anti-war book. It's really an accurate account of how we continually struggle to find the meaning to our lives, whether we're in a war or not. Slightly depressing, but very moving, in that oh so unique Vonnegut-esque way. So it goes.