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Avg. Rating: 4
Myth, Life, and Hair
My wife's blonde. My 57 year-old mother just dyed her once-brunette Italian coif blonde. I needed to read this book, and so do you. Ilyin covers not only fashion and consumer culture, she dips into myth, symbolism, history, and gender. What made this enjoyable was the spin placed on her personal anecdotes. She looks back with a critical eye and, it's an eye capable of seeing beneath the surface. Taking on popular culture, religion, and (of course) hair coloring, Ilyin shows us that appearances can sometimes be deceiving. And most of the time, they simply are.
Creative and explorative
Ilyin does a fabulous job of drawing the pictures of the various types of blondes. She helps the reader to see that blonde alone is just a color but the wearer of the blonde makes the blonde.Sometimes it seems as though she digs too hard to find evidence and examples. Most of the time she effectively draws compelling conclusions. I am able to see blondes through more complex filters now, and in fact with a bit less mystique. That may or may not have been her objective with the book, but nonetheless, it made some impact.
Interesting, but not quite what I thought it was
This book is a great little book to read for the purpose of leisure reading. However, if you're looking for a plethora of information on blondes and why people are fascinated with blonde hair, I would suggest you turn your attention elsewhere, such as the book "On Blondes" by Joanna Pitman.That being said, the book was interesting. It was more an account of the author's life than a book on the history of "the blonde myth," however. She seemed to talk a lot about herself, and then to ramble on about her family, and then to ramble on about some other random subject and finally tie it back to blonde hair. I would say if you are interested in reading a random woman's memoir, go with this book. If you are interested in reading about blondes, look elsewhere.
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