The help is so different from most books. It really focuses on gender roles and racism. The Help shows the differences between men and women, and black men and women. Its hard to believe even 50 years ago, there was that kind of discrimination between races. Skeeter for instance was shunned for bringing home a diploma and not a man. Where as a man would have been congratulated instead. It was almost never that a black man graduated, or a black woman even finished highschool in the south.