In the novel The Lovely Shoes by Susan Shreve, the main character, Franny, suffed from a birth defect in her left foot, causing her to be insecure and rely on her mother for guidance and friendship. Being in eighth grade, nearly ninth, Franny wanted to go to school dances in beautiful high heels, but because of her birth defect, Franny had to wear large, orthopedic shoes in order to support her while walking. She gots embarrassed at a school dance because of this, and in an attempt to put an end to the embarrassment, her mother wrote a letter to a shoe designer in France to create a pair of dress shoes for Franny that will look nice and support her foot at the same time. On their trip to France, Franny developed a sincere respect from her…show more content… Out of embarrassment, Franny had “locked herself in her bedroom for the rest of her life” (Shreve 68). Rather than being social, she stayed in her bedroom for two weeks and hoped to never see Mikey again. Additionally, unlike before the dance when she counted on her mother to be her best friend, Franny writes in a letter to her little brother, Ezekiel, that she “COMPLETELY trusted Margaret Hall, formerly [her] mother, to have my best interest in mind when she dressed me up like a clown to go to the Valentine's Dance at Easterbrook High. And [she] was wrong.” (Shreve 75) Meaning, she is divorcing her family and lost all respect for her mother. Lastly, in the middle of the novel Franny doesn’t want to talk to Mikey at all, and not because she’s nervous, but because she believes he is making fun of her. She says that Mikey and his friends would be at school “[laughing] themselves silly, slapping their thighs, making cripple jokes one after another” (Shreve 85). In the middle of the novel, Franny is antisocial, depressed and doesn’t want to leave her bedroom ever