DNF

I did not read this book and I know longer have any interest in reading it. This was during the beginning of my NetGalley “everything looks great so I am going to request it without looking into the book. I have definitely become more selective in choosing what books I want to request and read.

Wonderful book! I'm a huge fan of Summer Brennan's writing, and this book is a solid piece of research. Well done. Love the "object lesson" series.

Okay, so technically I DNF’d High Heel by Summer Brennan. BUT, this really says more about my work load and reading preferences than it does the book itself. You see, I always like to imagine myself as someone who reads nonfiction books for fun, but I can’t think of the last time I actually managed to complete a nonfiction book that wasn’t for work. At this point, I should probably give up the ghost and stick to reading YA, fantasy, and romance when I’m reading to relax. Still, I was lucky to receive a copy of High Heel through NetGalley, so I’ll go ahead and give you my initial impressions.

High Heel reads like a cross between an academic text and series of personal meditations, and I think this is, ultimately, one of the books strengths. This relatively unique format is more accessible to a general audience that might not otherwise pick up a book on literary or social criticism. It also gives readers room to think of their own experiences with high heels, structural inequality, and gender (just some of the topics covered in this short but dense text). I would recommend this book for readers interested in high heels (duh!) and gender socialization and inequality.

I did enjoy this book, but out of the three Object Lessons books that I've read, this would have to be my least favorite. It was still a simple and fast read though and I enjoyed it, but there was just something about this book that didn't catch my attention like the other two books did.

This is definitely one of the more interesting and thought-provoking volumes from the wonderful Object Lessons series. It’s a thoughtful and wide-ranging exploration of high heels – how and why they were first thought of to why women (in particular) still wear them, however uncomfortable, nay even dangerous, they often are. (How glad I am my own high heel days are over). Insightful, non-judgemental and entertaining – just what the books in this series should be.

High Heel by Summer Brennan is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in late March.

Brennan takes an unusual Greek philosophy route to chaptering the story and a formal decorum in its prose. Shoes portrayed as being a portrait of their wearer, the image (i.e. elegance, power) they want to convey, appearances in works of fiction, and the evolution of shoe design and height over time. There's also philosophic questions posed on the nature of beauty and what is attractive, playing an empowered role, sexual qualities of feet and shoe shapes, and the dangers of undue attention and violence.

Was delighted to interview the author for my weekend column. It’s slim but thought-provokingly great and started many conversations with and between readers about footwear, feminism and societal pressures to choose heels. Written in elliptical labyrinthine tidbits, like "Notes on Camp" and Maggie Nelson's BLUETS, and I'm still thinking about the ideas it brings up weeks later.

This was another great addition to the series. I liked this one even more than Pill and am looking forward to reading more of these...

"High Heel" by Summer Brennan.

5 stars.  
I didn't know what to expect, I loved it! 
It's easy to read and entertaining...  You just want to go on reading.  
I loved how it's divided in small chapters, it makes it so much easier to read and follow!  
The way it's written, I loved it!  It was captivating, a short read and I couldn't put it down!   Read in a few hours. 

And also weird and I loved it.  First chapter had me hooked : 
"A woman runs through a forest, chased by a god.
Another attends a ball.
A third stands ove ra subway gate in white chiffon.
A fourth chains herself t the gates of a palace.
A fifth is carried away.
A sixth is going home now, click click click.
A seventh approaches the guillotine.
..."

It was weird and captivating and I loved it!  And knew right there I wanted to read more!   An interesting read.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Academic for the ARC of this book.  This is my honest review.  All opinions are my own!

The connections Summer Brennan makes in this book are exceptional and seamless -- myths, literature, history, and personal anecdotes are all folded together in this object lesson. It's hard to stop reading!

I always enjoy these short meditations on everyday material objects.  This one traces high heels through the pattens that carried people above the muck of medieval streets to the high heeled boots made for stirrups, then to showcase male musculature of the calves, then extended to exclusively to women's fashion and use by men transgressing mainstream behavior.  Brennan pulls on threads like fairy tales, drag queens, stripper shoes and pole dancing, luxury brands, foot binding, workplace inequality and Barbies to provoke a meditation on a commonplace possession.

When I saw Summer Brennan’s book High Heel, I felt intrigued. It is the first of her books that I read and the first of the Object Lessons series from Bloomsbury, a collection of interesting books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

High Heel gave me so much pleasure. It is a short and concise book but it covers a lot of ground. As you read it reveals more and more, so much so, that I don’t know how Summer Brennan managed to write it. It is a book about femininity and feminism, sex and gender, violence and mythology. 

High Heel explores the history of the shoe, and high heel in particular. High heel was first considered masculine; they were actually invented for men as a form of riding footwear. You were not supposed to walk with these shoes. Eventually, during the Enlightenment, men's fashion shifted towards more practical clothing and as the differences between the sexes became more pronounced, female immobility and desirability begun to be constructed in terms of impractical fashion. The high heel becomes the primary example of this impractical dress, one of the obstacles to slow down and objectify the women. 

Summer Brennan is going as far back as the Greek myth of Daphne, who when she was pursued by the god Apollo, she run until she grew exhausted and cried out to Gaea for help. The goddess transformed her into a laurel tree which Apollo then adopted as his sacred plant. She also refers to the fairy tales of Cinderella, Little Mermaid and the Beauty and the Beast where women and girls are things to give and barter and are often asked to pay a price of pain, or silence, or both.

Overall, I loved High Heel. It is a great read, thoughtful, intriguing and easy to read.  Thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for my review copy.

Yet another interesting read from the object lessons series. Discussions on the relevance and ramifications of high heeled shoes right from fairy tales to feminism make it a very interesting read.

I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

High Heel is part of a series published by Bloomsbury Academic called “Object Lessons” that takes everyday topics and does a brief, but in depth look at those objects. I probably would have overlooked the series entirely if I didn’t already follow the author of this work on Twitter. I am intrigued by some of the other works in the series so this was a good gateway book for me.

High Heel explores the history of the shoe and how it was considered masculine, and made for soldiers in cavalry, before becoming the fashion of noble Europe, and eventually making it’s way as the standard for professional dress for women in today’s world. This is just the shallows of the world of high heels. Under the surface, there’s tension that comes with wearing high heels for women that this book really took the time to spell out. Even going as far back as the Greek myth of Daphne, where for as long as a woman is pursued, there will be obstacles that slow her down, whereas Daphane was turned into a tree, high heels now are a tool to slow down the modern woman and make them objects.

Further, the idea of women are told to wear the shoe, even though it is uncomfortable, and causes pain, and the fact that we can’t acknowledge it in social settings is even more obvious when we see the history of the high heel, like in the original Grimm fairy tale of Cinderella, or Andersen’s Little Mermaid. Now, we must be in pain, walk slower, and also be at fault for when we are assaulted.

Of course, I don’t think everyone is going to agree with the assessment that women are required to wear high heels, or agree that they have to wear them because of the patriarchy, and that is valid. In my experience, if you’ve ever worn high heels and felt some sort of power then you know why you want to wear them. This book makes you pause to evaluate your motivations–is it really for yourself or to please the patriarchy? Why should I have to only feel powerful in painful shoes? Am I trained to think less of pain, and more of beauty?

Overall, I found this a quick read that was interesting and well thought out. I wasn’t a fan of the structure, but it was easy to read past that. Looking forward to reading other books in this series and by this author. Check out The Oyster War by the author, which is a fascinating micro-history/politics surrounding a small California town, a private oyster business, and the Parks Department of the U.S.

Was there ever an article of clothing more weighed down by cultural baggage than the high heel? 

Summer Brennan, a wearer of heels, offers a discursive and allusion-heavy meditation, ambitious in its breadth, on this fraught and revealing cultural symbol. Solnitesque, this book's themes and subjects include female entrapment and social mobility in myths and fairy tales; origins and history of the raised shoe and heel; sexual dimorphism and our obsession with exaggerating the differences between the sexes; sexuality and sexism, femininity and feminism; fetishization of and violence against women; and subversive and artistic reappropriations liberated from patriarchal contexts. Whew!

Though emphatically not a wearer of heels, I liked this. I hope I haven’t made it sound dense: it’s smart but very easy reading. At its best, it's thought-provoking and surprising; at its worst, which thankfully isn't too often, it's self-conscious and overly whimsical. I would have appreciated more cultural diversity among her sources and references. But overall this short book would make a great gift for a reader whose interests include culture and fashion. Personally, I prefer Brennan's first book, a full-length and in-depth exploration of a controversy surrounding an oyster farm in Northern California. 

Oysters and high heels—and I hear her third book will be about a Parisian artist. Brennan sure knows how to pick her subjects!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in advance of publication.

"Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things".

In this object spotlight we dive into the world of the High Heel.
The High Heel, the icon of femininity a landmark symbol to be celebrated, fetishized, demonized and outlawed.
A particularly in depth look into the world of the High Heel and how it has transformed over time, it's relevance to gender identity, sex, women and the feeling of empowerment to the wearer's. 
Brennan makes a great comparison from Hollywood to cultural and societal associations with the "heel" it branches into the significance of feet binding and over to fairytale and the cinderella myth were interesting to read.
An intriguing set of books to read give them a go you will enjoy them.
4 Stars

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and Netgalley for sending me an arc in return for an honest review.
(All opinions are my own and are unbiased)

KILLER HEELS AND PLATHITUDES.

My first entry into Bloomsbury Academic’s collection of monographs…and likely my last (sorry Bloomsbury!) The Object Lessons series consists of short little books, about 25,000 words, about specific objects ranging from the everyday to the unexpected. (Eye charts, anyone?)

Unfortunately, this one read to me like a disorganised student essay. There are some insights as well as some interesting nuggets to discover but there really wasn’t a great deal here that I didn’t know already: the invention of the steel-centred stiletto, the Cinderella myth, bound feet, and so on. Plus plenty of Plath. 

As women grow older, comfort becomes paramount and heels get shorter. It’s a point young Summer Brennan fails to make. But the thing about high heels is that they can be summed up in just one word: flattering. And, as writer Mary Karr remarked, look where they lead to. (Though she didn’t put it quite as politely as that!) 

My thanks to Bloomsbury Academic for the review copy courtesy of NetGalley.

I really enjoy the objects series and how they focus on the reasoning behind an object. This was no exception to that. I rarely wear standard high heels and normally opt for a boot with a chunky 2-3inch heel as anything else is painful for long periods of time. The way that Brennan brings her various sources and arguments together was done really well and I finished this feeling like I learnt something about the cultural significance these shoes play. The combination of the past and the present discussions was also a good addition and this helps expand Brennan's argument beyond what we already know.

This is a quick, fascinating discussion of high heels and their impact on society. Brennan's writing is strong and more literary than you'd expect for this kind of nonfiction book, but that just adds to the readability of it. I don't know that it will fit in with my library's collection, but I will still recommend it to readers with relevant interests.

"Our shoes pin us to the world... and because the stories that shoes tell are invariably about public life, they must also be about status"

A thought-provoking meditation that starts with heels and travels over a range of related topics from rape culture to fashion, pain and femininity, beauty and art. Brennan is a wonderful companion as she moves us from Ovid's Daphne via Sylvia Plath's haunting black pumps in The Bell Jar, the shoe workshop in Ferrante's quartet of novels, and the numerous fairy-tales that work around shoes (Cinderella, The Red Shoes, Puss-in-Boots just as starters) through to David Bowie's glitter platforms and modern feminist debates about empowerment vs. submission to patriarchal strictures. 

I've read a few of the books in this intriguing series and this is the best to date - of course, that's partly because it speaks so clearly to my own concerns and interests, but also because Brennan combines the anecdotal with the researched, and ultimately leaves things open rather than closing them down: 

"How can we retain and celebrate a woman's sexuality and femininity, while freeing her from sexual objecthood? What are women even like outside of patriarchy?"

Witty, personal, wide-ranging, interrogative, angry in places, but always thoughtful and stimulating - you won't wear your favourite heels in quite the same way again!