"This stirring retelling of Rapunzel sees a troubled teenage content creator find her happy-ever-after"
October 2022 Debut of the Month
Perfectly plaiting the brutal world of content creation, family tragedy and alopecia to create an ingeniously inspiring re-telling of Rapunzel, Bryony Gordon’s Let Down Your Hair is simply incredible. Exploring depression, anxiety, the generational impact of addiction, and bereavement with honesty and remarkable empathy, it also presents the glory of self-determination and friendship with life-affirming power. I couldn’t recommend it more.
Since the day she was born, Barb’s glorious hair has defined her existence, and the same is true as she turns sixteen. Friendless and lonely, living on the upper floors of a tower block with her aunt, thanks to her hair - the fetishized focus of her social media channel - Barb has hundreds of thousands of online “friends”. Her hair is her future, a gleaming source of fame and fortune. In the words of Jess, her former best friend, “you’re nothing without your hair”, and Barb believes it.
Thankfully, after leaving school with no GCSEs, Barb’s flighty aunt scores her an interview with a major agency for content creators, and she finds herself thrust into a cut-throat world of fakery, referred to as her new handle, @letdownyourhair, rather than her own name.
Barb’s complex personal struggles — guilt that she’s ruined her loved ones’ lives, loneliness, lack of self-esteem, depression — are evoked with impactful, empathetic intensity. And then she finds a bald patch. Though horrifying at first, this gives Barb “a strange new energy”.
Mention must be made of Barb’s uplifting friendship with @IAmZal, a visually impaired activist who stepped away from the clutches of Barb’s agency. Through Zal Barb learns to make her channel accessible, and discovers “there was a whole other world out there…a world that was richer and greater and far more sympathetic than the one she had witnessed during her short time with Spark Enterprises.”
After surviving a mental health rollercoaster, after truths come to light, Let Down Your Hair comes to a jubilant, life-affirming climax that will have readers weeping with joy.
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Introducing the YA fiction debut from bestselling author and journalist Bryony Gordon in a modern twist on Rapunzel and one girl's quest to find a different sort of happy ever after.
Barb may have zero friends IRL, but online, she is popular. Like, several-hundred-thousand-followers popular. Or at least, her hair is popular. Because Barb's hair is glossy and beautiful. Which is why hairbrush manufacturers pay her stupid money for a 30-second clip. But most of the time Barb just wants to be a typical teenager, who has friends and a life. One who isn't confined to her bedroom on the 12th floor of the tower-block flat she shares with her aunt making content. One who can go about her business without everyone obsessing over the way she looks.
Barb just needs to save up some money to make a new life for herself. But it's soon clear something isn't right. Because when Barb runs her fingers over her scalp, she feels something smooth and different. She gets out her mirrors and combs for a video and sees it ... a bald patch the size of a ten pence coin, slap bang in the middle of her head. Barb has alopecia.
In this stunning retelling of Rapunzel, Barb must learn that she is so much more than her hair and that there is no such thing as a happy ending ... just lots of complicated new beginnings.
A note from Bryony Gordon: ‘Let Down Your Hair is my very first novel and is based on my own experiences – of desperately attempting to develop self-esteem, of getting lost in the madness of social media and of losing my hair. When I was 18 and very, very unwell with OCD, I developed alopecia. Almost all of my hair fell out. I’ve since learnt that this is a very common reaction to stress, but at the time I just thought I was a freak. Barb’s own experience with alopecia is at first a curse and then a wonderful liberation, the catalyst to realising that she has spent much of her young life comparing her insides with everybody’s outsides. That she is more than her hair, or the number of followers and likes she has on social media. This is a YA book, but its themes are just as relevant to me at the grand old age of 42.’
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Let Down Your Hair and determined it is suitable for children aged 15-18 years old
Let Down Your Hair features in the following genres: Debuts of the Month, Recommendations, Fiction PSHE Titles, Gritty Reads, Star Books, Featured Books for Young Adults
Let Down Your Hair is available in Paperback
Let Down Your Hair was written by Bryony Gordon and published by Orion Children's Books an imprint of Hachette Children's Group
Let Down Your Hair has 280 pages
£7.19
