Book Bites: Tits Up

Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts by Sarah Thornton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tits Up is best when delving into the anthropological history of breasts. Wet nurses relating to sex workers relating to the male gaze relating to milk banks. The tone misses at times, almost like a memoir, with each subject presented through the lens of Thornton’s own experience of a double mastectomy and reconstruction. Thornton’s connecting disparate phenomena like clothing manufacturing and the administration of the US WIC program with a single line mostly outweighs narrative issues, though. The text is, at times, laugh out loud funny, and at other times, gnash-your-teeth ire-inducing. The book’s layout as discrete vignettes, though, means some parts lose the plot. The chapter on witches and the history of spirituality feels particularly disconnected. Overall Tits Up is more interesting than not, an enlightening and fun read.

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