Let Down Your Hair by Jane B. Mason

Let Down Your Hair Reviews

• 
  Julie

  This is the third book in the series. And was not so easy to track down. Fantastic Fiction listed 1-2 and 4-7 and confused the heck out of me.
  
  In this book, we focus on Rapunzel. Except that every other chapter is from the point of view of one or another of the other princesses and I find that disorienting. The same holds true for the other books in this series that I've read so far.
  
  Add to that that I have trouble telling Rose and Snow apart. I have to think about it each time. One lives with Sleepy and one is sleepy. (To be more accurate, his name is Nod in this series. At least I think it was Nod. Maybe it was Yawn. Or Snooze.)
  
  Rapunzel's story is a deeply disturbing one if you stop to think about it for more than half a minute. And this book tackles that head on. And then dodges away from it at the end. Essentially it's the Rapunzel you know --- witch takes her as a baby from her parents, locks her in a tower. Except that around the age of 7, a young prince wandered by and encouraged her to climb down. (Because he was too chicken to climb up!) So she's been sneaking off since and is not 10ish and attending Princess School without the witch knowing.
  
  Well, the witch finds out. And she's not happy! Tries to lock her up more. Fails. The two end up writing love/hate notes to each other. I pine for my real mother. I take care of you. I want to go to school. No, stay with me. I have awesome friends. Your friends suck.
  
  Etc, etc.
  
  The end is entirely unsatisfactory because the witch essentially says she doesn't want Rapunzel to leave. Rapunzel says she has been leaving. But she always comes back! Aww, touching. Except then she winks at her friends, like she's totally lying to fool the witch.
  
  And you're kind of left adript without a moral compass. Okay, this kidnapper locks a girl up in a tower for 10 years. Feeds her acorns and things that are barely edible. Leaves her alone much of the time. Well, honestly, how does the kid not end up feral and entirely messed up?
  
  In any case, no happy ending should involve the situation staying as it was at the start of the book! She should not now be thinking of her a 'foster mother' when she never did before.
  
  Oh, and meanwhile there's some stupid plot about letters to princes.
  
  If I didn't already have all the other books through ILL, I'd be quite tempted to stop here.
  
• 
  Heidi

  Generally speaking, the book is a typical middle school, late elementary kind of fun princessy story. The language and plot line were simple and, well, even a bit tiresome for a more advanced reader, but a newer reader could get into it. This apparently is the third in a series, which you discover as you read, though it doesn't say #3 anywhere on the cover, and since the allusions to the previous two are scattered and not well developed, you do get the feeling that you missed something, not so much for the plot but for things you're expected to understand about the characters. Anyway, there were some obvious attempts to respond to modern criticism that the Disney fairy tale princesses are weak and need a little more gusto or something. One of the taglines is "Princesses who wait for no man" or something like that. And Rapunzel herself is described as feisty, though that trait tends to stay mostly in the description rather than in the performance, unfortunately.
  
  That's all rather nitpicky though. The bigger problem with the book lay in the ending. It kind of turned the feminist issue on its tail. Frankly, it would scare me if a girl in an abusive home read this and took away from it that she needed to stay in her abusive situation because if she was sweet and strong-willed enough and flattered them enough, she could turn a wicked witch of a mother (or guardian) into a good friend. There definitely should be a caveat or something there--because if you're responding to the notion that ideas conveyed in fairy tales, books, and movies actually influence the audience, i.e. that wimpy princesses produce wimpy women; then you'd better be pretty darn sure that the characters you're using are actually good examples that would produce good actions. Otherwise, this just isn't working.
  
  For children who don't live in abusive situations, the little twist of showing kindness to people who are mean does have some value, on the other hand. And if not for the hypocrisy just described, it was a clever solution to the mounting problems. Still, I'm not so sure I liked it that much.
• 
  Karen Patrick

  3 stars for nostalgia and good writing.
  2 stars for execution and giant plot hole. I would give zero stars for the handling of abusive relationships. Yes, this is a kid's book and I get that Rapunzel is a fairytale character but any kid could see that Gothel was an abusive witch who kidnapped Rapunzel as a baby, right?
  
  I read the first book of this series as a child and loved it. I thought the spin on classic fairytale princesses attending school together was the crossover of the century. I thought I was so lucky to find this book again in 2023 and reading it as an adult. However, I started to realize there were several problematic themes in this book and the first book. Time to spill the tea!
  
  The part that never sat right with me in the first book "If the shoe fits" was the fact that Cinderella was living in abusive household with stepmother and stepsisters constantly forcing her to do servant chores while she has to attend school at the same time. There was no solution at all in the first book even though there were teachers who noticed her really struggling at school. It's insane that no teachers stepped in to stop this and the worst part was that Cinderella was crowned as princess of the ball but she still had to return to her abusive household at the end, knowing she would get in huge trouble for breaking the rules. Okay, yeah, a sewing teacher gave some vague hint to her that she w0uld look into this issue and excuse Cinderella from further sewing homework but did that solve the overall issue that she was being treated like a slave at home?! A big fat NO. She needed social services intervention and no one gave her that even though she was apparently a princess. Or something. IDK why it's called Princess School if they can't even rescue their own royal students.
  
  The issue was not solved in this book either. The authors seemed to want to stick so badly to Cinderella's origin story that they flattened her character into someone who is constantly being swamped with chores, housework and being bullied by her stepsisters. She was still being treated as a servant at home even though she had a fairy godmother who could apparently create transportation out of vegetables but could not improve her living situation. I was so frustrated by this.
  
  But you know what was the straw that broke the camel's back? Frickin' Rapunzel Arugula (yes, the authors actually gave her that as her last name). She was kidnapped as a baby and raised by a witch called Gothel in a tall tower far away from civilization. Not only does Madam Gothel neglect her and leave her, a small child, alone in the tower for hours in a day, she also only visits her twice a day to give her nauseating meals such as toadstools and bitter roots. Rapunzel clearly hates her and is frightened of her abilities as a fearsome witch. It has been stated so many times by Rapunzel and her friends that she hated the tower and was lonely her entire life. Attending Princess School and having her own friends was her one solace in life.
  
  The book's entire plot is Gothel finding out that Rapunzel is secretly attending Princess School and thus attempting to stop her from escaping the tower. The two exchange many heated words and Rapunzel rebels against her, saying that she will never be her real mother and that she will find her freedom someday. Gothel, having the upper hand, simply uses all the forces of nature to prevent her from leaving her tower, refusing to listen to her "daughter" even though she expects Rapunzel to view her as a mother. Rapunzel faces many dangerous challenges from fog to blazing sunlight to crossing a perilous river just to get to school. Her friends help her but no one dares to stand up to the real abuser who is so determined to manipulate Rapunzel and convince her that all her friends would abandon her except her "dearest mother".
  
  I'm sorry, but didn't Tangled show how messed up this relationship was????
  
  This authors settled on a weak solution because it was too caught up with trying to fulfill the original demands of the fairytale. Similar to Goddess Girls, the authors abandoned character development because they wanted certain scenes from the fairytale to occur such as Gothel tricking Rapunzel's friends by impersonating her voice and imprisoning them in her castle. But instead of standing up against her evil stepmother, Rapunzel instead goes against her word and takes pity on the old witch who apparently was doing all these evil things because she just "misses her daughter". Wow, the same daughter whom she trapped in the castle and refused to give her any freedom? That daughter?
  
  Rapunzel and Gothel reach a sort of truce at the end where the witch eventually lets her have her birthday party and allows her to go to school. Rapunzel says that she won't let Princess School turn her into a prissy, weak thing because her stepmother is one heck of a witch. The ending just does not sit right with me. It was like the Rapunzel who was defiantly escaping the castle in book 1 had been replaced by this docile daughter who forgot that Gothel kidnapped her and just went, "Oh dear, she caused all these storms because of me escaping her castle! How powerful of her! I did not know she cared about me so much!" It also completely shits on the original message of book 1 which mentioned that Princess School was not just for air-headed girly girls and that you could be both feminine and strong. Rapunzel's character development took a major nosedive this book since she was so preoccupied with her feelings of envy towards Briar Rose who was nurturing a budding romantic relationship with her best friend, Prince Valerian. And now this, sticking up for her abuser. I couldn't believe it.
  
  I would have believed their relationship more if Gothel had actually been motherly to Rapunzel or even tried to turn Rapunzel into her sole heir. She's supposed to be the most powerful witch in the land and taught Rapunzel the art of potion-making herself. If she had a more nuanced relationship with Rapunzel or even showed an ounce of affection towards her, I would have believed that ending where Rapunzel eventually sees Gothel cared for her. It would have been way more interesting and believable if Gothel did not want Rapunzel to go to Princess School because she had plans to teach her witchcraft instead. Honestly, Princess School seems so ridiculous at this point. They can barely even save their own students from abuse and Rapunzel would have been a more interesting character if she embraced her dark side.
  
  Anyway, weak ending, weak plot. The first book had issues but the second book just shows that kids should return to abusive households if their abuser relaxed sometimes and eventually allowed them certain freedoms. The most sickening part was when Rapunzel reassured Gothel, her kidnapper and abuser that she would always return back to the castle because she liked it there. Ughhhh Stockholme Syndrome much?! SHE WAS RANTING ABOUT HOW MUCH SHE HATED THE CASTLE JUST CHAPTERS AGO. GOTHEL WAS NOT A GOOD MOTHER TO HER. SHE DOES NOT EVEN LET RAPUNZEL EAT CAKE AND SHE ONCE WROTE HER AN ANGRY LETTER SAYING THAT RAPUNZEL WERE TO STAY IN THE CASTLE UNTIL SHE DIED.
  
  Sorry, I'm just so heated up and mad over this book. I don't know if I ever want to read it again. I won't recommend this to any child either. I felt a mix of nostalgia and sadness because it's really humbling and shocking to come across a piece of work you enjoyed as a kid but seeing it for its problematic issues as an adult. I guess this is how those readers of Dr Seuss and JK Rowling must have felt.
• 
  Pamela S

  I think this book would suit best for younger readers, as this book uses simple languages that are easy to understand; haven't read the previous series, Lovely book to spend spare time on, and it also have a Brilliant moral in it- that everything that occurs to you, even bad things, would always have something good in it, like good or bad, who knows? Everything happens for a reason.
  
  The reason i gave this book only three stars is because for a teenager like me ,this book is a bit shallow to read on. But otherwise i think this book woud be perfect for young readers. Overall, a really princessy book that will make you smile.
• 
  Gissel13

  "Reelectura. Nunca supe que era un tomo 3. No lei los anteriores ni los posteriores. JAJAJA"
  
  Me gustó la amistad, Val y la escuela. Pero las princesas muy estereotipadas. Algo para leer ligero
  
• 
  Doremili

  Me gusta la saga porque es muy tranquila. Este en especial es bastante fluido y se centra en la confianza y la amistad. Muy agradable y bueno para niñas pequeñas. Me gusto el como hicieron de una bruja una madre.
• 
  Anne

  I really liked this book too, but it is not as good as "If The Shoe Fits" because it copied the first book too much.
• 
  Windy

  Trying to keep up with kids. Cute story, will probably buy this series for my niece for Christmas.
• 
  Kira

  My little girls loved this series of books. Great for 4-10 year olds.