Love Is in the Hair - Hardcover

Cary, Gemma

 
9780593651261: Love Is in the Hair
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 059365126X ISBN 13: 9780593651261
Verlag: Delacorte Press, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A feminist coming-of-age comedy that follows the endless humiliations, unrequited obsessions, and all-consuming friendships of fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle as she leads a body hair positive revolution at her school.

Fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle can’t seem to catch a break. At home, she must deal with her free-spirited mom, and at school she’s the target of ridicule for stating basic truths: like that girls have body hair!

When her BFF Frankie—who has facial hair due to her PCOS—becomes the target of school bullies, Evia decides that enough is enough and creates the ‘Hairy Girls’ Club.’  

Leading a feminist movement at school is not easy. Boys often look at Evia like she’s a total weirdo, and the self-proclaimed ‘smoothalicious’ girls start their own campaign in retaliation. As Evia struggles with feeling strong enough to lead, and questions how to be a good friend to Frankie, she falls back on the best thing she has—hope. Her message is simple: We CAN make this world a more accepting, less judgmental place for girls to live in…one hairy leg at a time!

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gemma Cary grew up in Somerset, England, and earned her degree in English at the University of Exeter. She landed her first job in children’s publishing in 2005 and despite deriving a fair amount of joy from being a professional spellchecker (among other things), Gemma soon realized she’d rather write the words herself. After penning a load of picture books that you probably haven’t heard of, Gemma decided to have a go at writing for teens. This book is the result.

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One


When I was born, I looked like a tiny chimp: two-inch bouffant, hairy shoulders and a face furry enough to scare any midwife. Sometimes I feel like not much has changed.

“What if it’s hypertrichosis?” I ask over my mom’s shoulder while an angry wok spits at her.

“Hyper-what?”

“Trichosis!” I shout over the roaring hood fan. “Werewolf Syndrome!”

Mom flicks off the fan. “Oh, not this again. You’re exaggerating, Evia!”

“I’m not.” I thrust the side of my face in her direction and stroke my cheek. “My sideburns are definitely getting worse!” As for my eyebrows, they’re like tectonic plates. If I didn’t pluck them, there’d be a natural disaster. On. My. Face.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Fluff.” Mom whips a bowl of stir-fry onto my place mat, then folds herself neatly into the chair opposite to watch me eat. She’ll have hers later, after her class. “I assure you,” she says, “you are not turning into a werewolf. You’re just . . . at the hairier end of the spectrum.”

Great. So there’s a Spectrum of Female Body Hair and I’m at the wrong end. Thank you, Mother, and thank you, Destiny!

I stab a squeaky chunk of Halloumi with my fork, then ram it into my mouth. Pah!

It’s my dad’s fault. He was Greek and he was hairy. And that’s all my mom has told me about him. He was Greek and he happened to be working on one of the islands where my mom--in her late thirties--was backpacking. They hooked up for one night, my mom returned to the good old US of A and hey presto, nine months later I was born!

Issues I have with this little episode include:


1. MINOR ISSUE: The fact my mom went backpacking in her late thirties. Hands up if that shouts “midlife crisis” to you, too?!

2. SLIGHTLY BIGGER ISSUE: The fact that I resulted from a one-night stand. Not exactly the loving scenario you’d hope for, is it? My mother confessed to this when I was eleven.

3. BIG ISSUE: The fact she named me after that Greek island, as if I’d grow up to appreciate nothing more than being reminded ON A DAILY BASIS of the exact location of my conception. Every time someone shouts “Evia!” it’s like a big, disgusting reminder that my mom had sex.

4. GIANT ISSUE: Not knowing my father AT ALL. One day I will track him down. My best friend, Frankie, has promised to help me. We’re just not sure how or where to start. . . .


“Anyway,” Mom starts up again, “you shouldn’t be embarrassed about having body hair. It’s completely natural. I’ve told you before: the only reason women remove it is because they think men want them to.”

“And because they want to feel beautiful,” I add.

“Yes--because society has conditioned us to believe that body hair is ugly! Women naturally grow hair in all the same places as men, but men get to flaunt it while women are led to believe that they must be hair-free. It’s totally wrong, Fluff!”

Argh! There it is again! Seriously. Shouldn’t my mother have realized by now that reminding her daughter of her furriness several times a day might not be entirely sensitive? “Fluff” has been her nickname for me since I was born--for obvious reasons--and lately it’s felt more accurate than ever. I tell you: puberty does cruel, cruel things to a girl.

Anyway, every time she calls me Fluff it makes me want to annoy my Mom right back, so I’ve started calling her Antonia. Or Antonia Birtwhistle in full if I really want to annoy her. You’d think, what with her being a yoga-teaching liberal, that she’d be one of those super-cool parents who likes being called by their first name. She’s not.

My mom claims she’s a New Age Feminist, whatever that means. Mostly it means that she hasn’t lifted a razor in nearly five years. It also means that when her legs are out, I dread a trip to Aldi in case we get stuck in the fruit-and-veggie aisle while a friendly toddler clings to her shin, stroking it. Her knees are just the right height for a two-year-old to mistake her for a golden retriever.

Mom narrows her eyes at me. “Does this sudden preoccupation with hair have something to do with Frankie?”

“What? No!”

“Well. Maybe you should think yourself lucky. You have nothing to worry about compared with that poor girl.”

I swallow my mouthful. “Hang on--weren’t you literally just saying how natural body hair is? And now you’re describing my best friend as ‘poor’ because she has so much?”

Mom opens her mouth, then closes it again. Ha! I love calling her out on stuff like this.

I eat the rest of my dinner in silence, mostly because she’s right. “That poor girl” is my best friend and has been since we first met at eight years old. Frankie used to be this superconfident, hugely talented singer who loved nothing more than persuading me to put on a show with her in her front room, with her family as our audience. But thinking about it, I can’t remember the last time we did that. The thought of standing up to sing in front of anyone now--even her own family--would be Frankie’s idea of hell.

It’s all because of this condition she has called polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS. I’ve since learned that a lot of women have it, and one of the main symptoms is excess body hair. In sixth grade, Frankie had sideburns. In seventh grade, her chin started sprouting hair and, by eighth grade, she was able to grow a beard. Don’t get me wrong, the ability to grow a beard is great if you’re in a hipster folk band. But when you’re a fifteen-year-old girl and you have a five o’clock shadow by the end of the school day, it truly sucks.

I scrape a couple of limp, brown bean sprouts into the compost bin and slide my plate into our tiny dishwasher before retreating to my room.


Later, after the front door bangs closed behind my mom, I head downstairs and pluck the tub of Halo Top ice cream from the freezer, escorting it triumphantly to the living room. Feet up on the sofa, I flick on the TV and reach for my phone. If this is a preview of what it’s like to live alone, I CANNOT WAIT.

I tap open Instagram and start scrolling, scanning for anything newsworthy. There’s Adam Johnson showing off his latest tat; Shania Kaminski posting another terrible makeup tutorial; some celeb flashing a blingy engagement ring over her fiancé’s shoulder. Getting engaged seems so far off to me that I can’t imagine what that feels like. I don’t even have a boyfriend yet, just a vague notion that it’s something I might have one day--when I have secured some vital intel on HOW to get one.

Swiping through the stories, I suddenly see Madison Cox’s face grinning out at me from a fluorescent circle. I should unfollow her; just a glimpse of her glowing orange face is enough to make me shudder. But I began following her one day out of pure boredom and curiosity--apparently her parents are megarich doctors and they live in a mansion--and now I feel like if I unfollow her, she might notice. . . .

I should scroll past, ignore that nagging temptation. But somewhere at the helm of my brain, an overriding voice tells me I need to watch this. My fingertip reacts and before I know it, the video is playing. It’s not live but it’s recent, having already received 149 views and the...

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Verlag
Delacorte Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
059365126X
ISBN 13 
9780593651261
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

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