The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

In Jackson, Mississippi in 1962, the lines between white folks and the black women who clean their homes, cook their meals, and raise their children seem inviolable. This novel describes how one white woman's ambition to become a writer leads her to cross those lines, enlisting a dozen maids to tell their stories in a book that threatens to tear their society apart. Though simplistic in many ways, the story rings true. Stockett has captured the voices and the attitudes of her characters spot-on and built a world that is compelling and uplifting even as it breaks your heart.