Let Down Your Hair: Bryony Gordon

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Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. 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”. 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. She is the author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers plus The Sunday Times Number One bestsellers You Got This and Mad Girl which were both nominated for British Book Awards. The way the book flips the chronology of the story, made it so engaging and kept me glued to the page.

Like the main character of Bryony Gordon’s novel, my hair was something that people always commented on. 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. It just spends so much time talking about the world of social media influencers that the alopecia elements get shoved in at the end. This is the first novel not aimed at children with alopecia representation, so I was interested to read it.There is a lot to really enjoy in this story and there is great energy to the writing, as well as some fine characterization' - Peter James, award-winning and no. A fearsome, remarkably ambitious novel that breaks through the boundaries of the genre to become epic - in all the best senses of the word.

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. 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.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. Mel and Sid are determined to do this together, but they soon discover that pregnancy is totally different for boys and girls. At its core is the message all teens need to read: you are good enough, and your looks are not your sum total as a person (neither is your social media following). 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.

Any sixteen-year-olds would expect trouble, but this is Northern Ireland 2018, where abortion is still illegal. It’s not that the way alopecia is discussed here is bad, which makes sense given Bryony Gordon’s own experiences. As happy as I am to see alopecia in a novel, I don’t think it’s just an extra complication to this novel. Mel's religious parents insist she must keep the baby, whilst Sid's feminist mum pushes for a termination.In 2017 she won the MIND Making A Difference Award for her work in changing the perception of mental health in the media. 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. With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The YA fiction debut from bestselling author Bryony Gordon, Let Down Your Hair is a modern twist on Rapunzel featuring a hair influencer who develops alopecia – and her quest for a different sort of happy ever after. A first introduction into the YA fiction realm and Bryony is throwing off the deep end, not starting with something more straightforward, but trying to tackle social media and alopecia through a beloved fairy tale.

In 2017, she won the MIND Making A Difference Award for her work in changing the perception of mental health in the media.In the words of Jess, her former best friend, “you’re nothing without your hair”, and Barb believes it. 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. This story skillfully and sensitively manages the emotional debate over the pro's and con's of babies and abortions, not always predictable, and very relatable. 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. 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.