The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I did enjoy reading this book but I don't think it was a great piece of literature. I don't want to be snobby about it, but it did seem a bit cliche and predictable. And the characters thinly drawn...at least some of them. But I enjoyed reading it, so I feel bad be critical. After all, shouldn't reading be pleasurable?
But really....did all of the white women have to be so evil? Except for Skeeter, of course, the author of the book that is being written within this book. The Help tells the story of black women working for white women in Jackson, Mississippi. They are surrogate mothers to the white women's children, cooks, cleaners, servers, and more. But they can't use the family bathroom, have their children share schools, or the lunch counter with anyone who is white. One of the white women, Skeeter, an aspiring writer, decides to be brave and tell the story, anonymously, of the women who have been so crucial in the upbringings of all of these white women, but who live a very separate and not equal life. Apparently, Kathryn Stockett, the author, felt compelled to tell this story after moving to New York and feeling conflicted about her prior life in the south. So, the book seems semi-autobiographical.
Now, on to the problem I had......
I am sure that there were (are) plenty of women like Miss Hilly, one of the worst white offenders in the book, but she was painted in such a negative way; you wanted her to get lynched. And really, is the point of the book to want bad things inflicted on anyone in the human race?
I don't know.....maybe I am missing something here. Please. Weigh in.

Bent Road by Lori Roy

Good read but it took me a while....
The Scotts are a family of five who move from Detroit, Michigan to get away from race riots and phone calls from black boys to their eldest daughter. Arthur, the father, is from a farm in the Midwest and decides to take the family there to live. Not easy for his wife, Celia, who has a good and happy life. And there's more. Eve, Arthur's youngest sister, died under mysterious circumstances twenty years earlier.
The kids, young Evie, Daniel, the middle child and the oldest daughter, Elaine, each face their own challenges in Kansas differently and adjust differently.
These challenges are set against the serious threat of violence and murder. The reader knows that there is more than meets the eye.
Arthur's quest to protect his family from racial strife instead brings them closer to danger, family intrigue and violence far scarier than anything they witnessed in Detroit.
It's a good read and quite well written.