NONFICTION

The Glass Slipper: Women and Love Stories

by Susan Ostrov Weisser
Rutgers Univ. Oct. 2013. 264p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780813561783. $80; pap. ISBN 9780813561776. $26.95; ebk. ISBN 9780813561790. LIT
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Weisser (English, Adelphi Univ.; Women and Romance: A Reader) poses the question: What hath English novelist Jane Austen and ABC's reality television series The Bachelor wrought? The scope of her investigation is the depiction of women in heterosexual romance narratives, past and present. While the glass ceiling has arguably been broken, the idealized glass slipper romance remains "embedded in women's identity as a powerful marker of value." As the discussion over Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In and the enduring importance of Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia demonstrate, women's roles in society are far from static, and as women have advanced toward achieving greater equality, there remain cultural norms particularly related to sexuality that women are expected to accept and follow. In this nonjudgmental exploration of women's relationship to romance, covering everything from Charlotte Brontë to The Jersey Shore, Weisser's stated goal is not to shatter the glass slipper but rather to see beyond its idealized narrative.
VERDICT This is a decidedly scholarly work with substantial notes and an extensive select bibliography, yet it is not out of reach for the layperson and those interested in the impact of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover on the most recent season of The Bachelorette and how both have affected women's views of themselves, both in and out of love.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Heffington, Lipscomb Univ. Lib., TN , Sep 15, 2013
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