Gustavo Cairo Cairo من عند Sranal, كمبوديا من عند Sranal, كمبوديا

This is an interesting reinterpretation of the story from the anime. There are some notable differences mainly in the sequence of events, as well as the demeanor of Shinji. If you thought Shinji was too whiny in the anime, you may enjoy this better. It's also interesting in the way that the story is told more through Shinji's eyes. If you want to know more about the characters and their background you would probably enjoy this.

I bought The Help for the plane/car ride home back to Canada after my vacation. My mother and sister went on and on about how wonderful the book was, and that I should read it right away and then go see the movie. So, I picked it up at the Orlando airport and ended up devouring it within 2 days. I can understand completely why many people do not like this book. For one thing, I was really apprehensive when I saw that it was written by a young white woman who grew up in Jackson, MI. You see, much of the book is written from the point of the view of black women living in the 1960s so no matter how hard Kathryn Stockett tries, she's never going to get it completely and totally right. She just isn't a black woman working as a maid in the 60s. She wrote this book about her own maid, but she wasn't her maid...so it will never be completely right or factual. But I knew this going in, and I wanted a light summer read and it turned out to be highly entertaining. When I want to read something educational about a specific time period, I don't turn to fiction. This was a purely entertaining experience. Some of it might be accurate, but I'm willing to bet that most of it wasn't. That's okay though, because I found the characters to each be unique, engaging and very funny. I laughed out loud at several parts in the book and felt disappointed and saddened for characters during other parts. The only thing I disliked about the book was the ending, because it was pretty bitter sweet and would have liked to see a better outcome for each of the characters. All in all, I'd recommend the Help to my girl friends who aren't looking for anything too heavy but don't want to succumb to the usual chick-lit, either.