A Boob’s Life: How America’s Obsession Shaped You—and Me

Novelist and screenwriter Lehr (Wife Goes On) blends memoir, history, and cultural criticism in this witty and incisive look at American attitudes toward women’s breasts. She tracks the evolution of her feelings about her own breasts from pubescence to flat-chested young adulthood, breastfeeding, plastic surgery (aiming for a B cup, she ended up size 32D), and surviving breast cancer. Lehr’s appealing sense of humor runs throughout, as does her sharp analysis of broader social issues such as the messages girls receive about being smart versus being pretty, the “bro culture and tribe mentality” of the Senate Judiciary Committee during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the marketing techniques of lingerie brands, and the censorship of women’s breasts in movies and on social media platforms. Digressions on her father’s collection of Playboy magazines, the history of the Hooters restaurant chain, and the popularity of breast augmentation surgery in the U.S. mingle with frank details about Lehr’s battle with breast cancer and the stresses in women’s lives that contribute to the disease, which, she notes, kills more than 42,000 American women every year. Lehr’s engrossing and empathetic account will appeal to women of all ages. (Mar.)