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Life can be beautiful, but it takes a little work...“The problem with cutting your own hair is that once you start, you just keep cutting, trying to fix it, and the truth is, some things can never be fixed. The day of my daddy’s funeral, I cut my bangs until they were the length of those little paintbrushes that come with dime-store watercolor sets. I was nine years old. People asked me why I did it, but I was too young then to know I was changing my hair because I wanted to change my life.”
In 1983, on her nineteenth birthday, Zora Adams finally says goodbye to her alcoholic mother and their tiny town in the mountains of South Carolina. Living with a woman who dresses like Judy Garland and brings home a different man each night is not a pretty existence, and Zora is ready for life to be beautiful.
With the help of a beloved teacher, she moves to a coastal town and enrolls in the Davenport School of Beauty. Under the tutelage of Mrs. Cathcart, she learns the art of fixing hair, and becomes fast friends with the lively Sara Jane Farquhar, a natural hair stylist. She also falls hard for handsome young widower Winston Sawyer, who is drowning his grief in bourbon. She couldn’t save Mama, but maybe she can save him.
As Zora practices finger waves, updos, and spit curls, she also comes to learn that few things are permanent in this life—except real love, lasting friendship, and, ultimately… forgiveness.
Author: Kim Boykin
Publisher: HarperTeen
Acquired Via: Book Nerd Tours
Release Date: May 14, 2013
My Review
The Wisdom of Hair is not what I expected. I thought I would be getting a saucy, witty novel about Southern women in a beauty shop. Instead a found an exploration of relationships between not just lovers, but family and friends that followed Zora Adams to her discovery of what love really is. That is not to say there were no saucy witty moments, but the actual beauty shop time was minimal.
Zora Adams grew up with a really crappy mom, so when she went out in the world, she wasn't the best equipped to make healthy relationships. Thankfully, Sara Jane Farquhar came bursting into her life, and they were instantly best friends. Sara Jane's parents were probably my favorite literary parents because they essentially adopted Zora and loved her unconditionally just because Sara Jane did. It made me all warm and tingly in my chest region whenever I read most of the scenes with any of the Farquhars, and I may have gotten a little jealous that they haven't taken me in yet, too.