Summer Beach Reads: The Help

This book was recommended to me awhile ago but once I saw the movie preview, I knew it was way past time to read it.

And it was time for me to take a break from reading standard chick-lit, so it arrived from Amazon at a great time.

The Help is set during the 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. While the rest of the US is integrated and the hippie movement is starting in the north, young women in Jackson can't wear dresses above the knee or grow their hair long. And black women are still the help, performing the household chores, cooking, cleaning and raising the white children of wealthy families.

This novel tells the stories of three women- Skeeter, a white recent college grad looking to change the world with her writing, Aibileen, an older maid, and Minny, a mouthy younger maid.

It's a good, entertaining read that opens your mind and makes you think. How can one city in America have been so far behind? How was it just okay for that to happen?

Summer Beach Reads: Opposite of Me

I'm starting my Reading List with one of my all-time favorites.

Since I read this book last year, I have compared every single book to it and nothing has come close to this one.
"The Opposite of Me" is an absolute must-read if you are a sister. You'll still enjoy it if you're not one, but if you have a sister, this will put things in perspective. Whether you're older or younger, you'll feel for the sisters in this book and find yourself going, "that is so me!"

The sisters in this book, twenty-nine year old twins Lindsey and Alex, have grown up in the shadows of each other. One is, of course, smart and successful but a little overweight and frumpy; the other beautiful and carefree. What sets this book apart from others with similar characters is what the sisters go through and how the characters change and develop throughout.

I don't want to give too much - or anything, really - away in this great beach read, but I promise you, this book is easy to devour. My friends and I have passed this around and around since last summer and no one has been disappointed. You'll want to pass is around so you can discuss it together. (Yeah, I'll admit I'm a nerd, but not all my friends are, and they wanted to discuss it, so I swear that you will too!)

If you pick this one up, let me know what you think!