Review: Why I Let My Hair Grow Out by Maryrose Wood

Series: Morgan Rawlinson #1

Publisher: Berkley Trade

Published: March 6th 2007

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Source: Borrowed from a friend

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Being sent to your room is one thing. But being sent to another country? 

Morgan's boyfriend dumped her on the last day of school - it seemed the only thing to do was to hack off her hair and dye the stubble orange. Unfortunately, Morgan's parents freaked and decided a change of scenery would do her good. So they're sending her off on a bike tour of Ireland. 

But Morgan gets more than she bargained for on the Emerald Isle - including a strange journey into some crazy, once upon a time corner of the past. There, she meets fairies, weefolk, and a hunky warrior-dude named Fergus, and figures that she's got some growing to do-and she doesn't just mean her hair.

Why I Let My Hair Grow Out is a great quick read, which was quirky and quite funny. I enjoyed reading this book and I often found myself laughing aloud at times throughout the story.

One thing that I really loved about the story was the main character Morgan. At the start of the story I did find her to be a little whiny and annoying, but that didn’t last too long. I loved how funny Morgan could be. She was blunt, witty and could be quite comical at times. She was also a strong character, who liked to face a challenge head-on, which I admired her for. I adored Colin, who could be just as witty and funny as Morgan, but who was more laid back. I was entertained by the banter between the two. I thought that the minor characters were good too, each one adding their own bit to the story which worked really well.

The story was fast paced. It didn’t take long for the action to happen, and everything that lead up to the action wasn’t lingered on for too long. I really enjoyed how action-packed this story was, it was all packed into such a short story, but yet there was a lot going on. The plot was full of twists and turns and half the time you didn’t know what was going on. There were certainly some amusing surprises. 

I liked the writing style, as well. I felt that it was unique to Morgan, and I hadn’t read anything like it before. It was almost like stream of consciousness from Morgan, but not quite. It worked well by adding more humour to the story.

Lastly my favourite part about this story was all the mythology and Irish legends. I have seemed to have accidently picked up quite a few books about Irish and Celtic legends and mythology recently, and I have been intrigued by it. I thought that it was well handled, with ancient warriors, fae and all the other magical creatures, including a talking horse.

Overall, Why I Let My Hair Grow Out was a fast paced, great read and I would recommend it if you are in a reading slump, because I think it would be a good book for getting out of one. I gave it 5/5 stars!

Mel.

Up next - Seven on Saturday: Books I loved as a child.