"The Help" is both the housekeeper and cook black white serving in Mississippi in the 1960s, and above all - romance theme - the support that will allow female characters to face the burdens and injustices of segregation and racism. What is the most successful to me: first, the great wealth of the main characters (both Black and White), and their interaction; secondly, the stitched description of interesting details of the US company in a place and at a specified time. I could fault a "politically correct" and a Manichaeism, which unbalance the story a bit. With few exceptions, all black women are brave and smart, white women dumb and harpies. I would have liked such a little better understanding of how and why had built and above all maintained among whites, mixed with contempt vis-à-vis afraid of their black fellow citizens. Similarly the author evokes no black male character, except the husband of one of the protagonists, violent and alcoholic. A good level of English is required. Language is reasonably familiar, and if some expressions and slang terms have somewhat escaped me, the pleasure of reading is not the whole decreased.